>
> Hello,
>
> I'm looking for advice on which Linux distribution is best for SMP, if any. I
> mainly work on digital multimedia so performance on the cheap is a major issue.
> I've used Linux before, but not since Slackware 96, so I'm out of touch with which
> distributions are leading the field. Stampede claims to have the best
> distribution for performance, and I'd appreciate comments from anyone who has used
> this on an SMP system. Of course, any other suggestions would be most welcome.
Slackware-current (ftp.cdrom.com) supports SMP kernels based on 2.2.5 out
of the box, I am not aware of other distros that do that, although you
could build an SMP kernel for all distros. I doubt you would find a difference
in speed of the same SMP kernel on different distros, but definitely recommend
the 2.2.x code above the 2.0.x, I noticed about a 20% speed improvement with
the later versions.
One other thing to keep in mind: a glibc2.x based system like Redhat
has pthreads built in by default, in case you use need multi threading
(a nice thing to have on an SMP system, if your software can utilize it
or you write your own multi-threaded code), but you can easily upgrade
from libc5 as a default C-lib to glibc (see glibc-Howto).
I'm running Slackware 3.6 with KDE 1.1 and 2.2.5 SMP, upgraded to glibc2.1
and egcs 1.1.2, and I am truly elated with both performance and stability,
to say the least. I am very happy with Slackware, but also run RedHat on an
extra machine (not SMP, only so I can support RedHat boxes - I don't like
it as much and had some problems with the compilers/libs on RedHat 5.2).
My hardware:
Supermicro P6DBS, Dual Channel AHA7895 UW, Raid, 2xPII450, 128 MB RAM,
Seagate Cheetah
Regards, -Borries
*******************************************************************************
* Borries Demeler, Ph.D. *
* The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio *
* Dept. of Biochemistry, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, Texas 78284-7760 *
* Voice: 210-567-6592, Fax: 210-567-4575, Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
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