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Thread: Dual Processors vs. *nix

  1. #1
    AO Part Timer
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    Dual Processors vs. *nix

    Let me see where to start. I recently received a pair of atx dual processor motherboards.
    One of them is dual 500 socket sevens. The other is dual 256 socket eights? I've personaly never heard of socket eights, but that isn't my question.

    I know I can run Windows NT 4.1 and up, and get usage of both processors. I am not familiar enough with how dual processors actually work. But I am ready to learn. Is there a distro of *Nix that will support the dual processors? Any good refrences, tuts, and or good advice. If I can use *Nix and further my personal experiences, great.

    Okay time for the bribe, any good advice will get some greenies

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  2. #2
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    Most modern *nixs will run multiprocessor systems (in fact most will scale up further then the two processors that windows allows.) I would sugest one of the BSD's (NET or open would be my sugestions), or any of the Linux varients to play with. Hit the BSD web site or linux.org for some very good howto's on doing this.
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  3. #3
    AO Decepticon CXGJarrod's Avatar
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    RedHat has support for dual processors... as I recieved one of our dual processor systems with RedHat on it.
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  4. #4
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    bballad, while it is true that most modern UN*X systems support SMP, I would not call OpenBSD a modern UN*X, consequently:

    http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq8.html#SMP

    It still lacks SMP support. Net and FreeBSD still have very bleh SMP support, really the only BSD with "industrial strength" SMP support would be BSDi. AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, etc of course all offer SMP support ranging from very good to industry leading.

    For comparison, Win2k Server supports 4 CPUs, Adv Server 8, Datacenter 16|32 naturally win2k standard supports 2 CPUs symmetrically. These numbers are essentially the same for 2003 with the exception of the datacenter support, which is now up to 64 CPUs.

    BeOS used to offer fine SMP support, shame it more or less died, for dealing with only 2 CPUs BeOS seemed, the most efficient at least as far as x86 is concerned.

    QNX also features exceptionally efficient SMP support.

    As far as common stuff is concerned, Linux has supported SMP for a while now, but I have had a few engineers where I work say that 2k and 2003 are a little smarter about threading.

    hope this helps.

    catch

  5. #5
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    linux defenitely does support dual ( or more processors), SGI have a system i think its called an ALTIX, one of their new ones, it runs a 64 bit version of linux that uses multiple processors, im not sure what sort of linux it uses, whether its free or their own SGI version, check out their website there may be some specific info there
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  6. #6
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    I personally like debian based distros. I would personally recommend getting RedHat because there is much support out there for RedHat heck IRC channel is always full and yes it does support SMP in the kernel.

  7. #7
    Leftie Linux Lover the_JinX's Avatar
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    I have slackware running on a Dual P2 333 and have configured one for a friend running a Dual AMD 2000+ XP

    both work like a charm..

    if you boot your linux in a framebuffer (not the suse animated kind)
    and are used to seeing a tux top left of the screen
    you'll get two tuxes on a dual system !!

    I'd love to get my hands on a 8, 16, 32 or 64 processor box.. but damn I don't have that kind of money
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  8. #8
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    I'm very happy with FreeBSD-5.1 running on my dual Athlon 2400+

    Most linux distros and *bsd will run on a dual system. But you'll need to recompile your kernel though. The default kernels only support a single CPU.
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