[CLUE-Tech] Which RedHat SMP Version

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Thu, 2003-06-19 at 09:19, Gary Threlkeld wrote:
> I've managed to acquire a SuperMicro P6DLS - dual processor
> system with dual Intel PII 450 MHz CPU's.  I want to load it up with 
> Redhat 9 and play with SMP. 
>  
> Going to a Redhat mirror, there are SMP kernels for i586 and i686.
> I want to make sure that I have the right kernel but am a little
> unclear as to which to install.
>  
> The server model id would lead me to believe that I should
> use the i686 download.  "P6DLS" - I believe stands for P6,
> dual-processor, 440LX chipset, SCSI.

Er... the P6DLS is the model name of the motherboard, yes? That has
nothing to do with i386, i586, i686, etc. The i586 is Pentium chips,
i686 is PII or above, IIRC. 


> OTOH, I thought that PII's were considered i586 generation
> processors.

If you have i586, they should run that, but they are i686. 

> FINALLY, to my questions ...
>  
> 1)  Any thoughts as to which kernel I should run?
> 2)  Help me understand the differences in the kernels.  Are
>      there going to be catastrophic problems (damage) if I
>      attempt to use the wrong one or just performance issues?

If you try to run code compiled with Pentium optimizations or PPro
optimizations on older chips, it won't run. If you run code with Pentium
optimizations on newer chips (say, a PIII) it will run fine.

> 3)  For future reference... are there "concrete rules" to apply
>      do help decide which kernel series i386, i486, etc to use 
>      with a processor series PII, PIII, P4, etc.?

i386 == 386
i486 == 486 (rarely used, I'm not sure what special extensions there
might be for 486 chips)
i586 == Pentium or equiv. 
i686 == PII (and I believe Pentium Pro) and above. 
IA64 == Itanium

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net