Re: upgrading to an SMP kernel

[Gordon Price <gordon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Pepe wrote:

> Gordon Price wrote:
>
> > Kind Folks,
> >
> >    I am running into an issue that has me really bugged. I have one 
> > machine that has the *2.6.11-1.27FC3smp* kernel and another with the 
> > *2.6.11-1.27FC3* non-smp kernel. I need to use the smp version for a 
> > project that only works with this version of FC3 that uses a USB 2.0 
> > video device I designed.  I have looked everywhere I know to figure 
> > out how to get the smp kernel on the non-smp  machine, and I can not 
> > seem to back track the steps correctly.
> >
> >     I have tried yum every which way but loose, and can not get an 
> > smp kernel period, to install or upgrade on the non-smp machine. Yum 
> > wants to upgrade me to 2.6.12, and I don't want to do that.
> >
> >    On the machine that does not have the smp kernel, I tried copying 
> > all the smp files (4) that were in /boot on the smp machine to the 
> > /boot directory on the non-smp machine. I then added an entry in 
> > /etc/grub.conf for the smp kernel boot. This does not work at all. 
> > This issue makes me worry that Linux hard drives may be more 
> > difficult to move from machine to machine in a pre-configured format 
> > than I had wished????
> >
> >    Specifically, how would you try to upgrade the non-smp machine to 
> > smp without trashing what is already on it??? Could Linux be looking 
> > at the hardware itself and deciding that maybe it can not support the 
> > smp version in the first place???
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Gordon
>
> Hi Gordon,
>
> I hope I am correct in assuming you understand that the SMP (Symmetric 
> Multi-Processing) kernel is for machines that have two or more CPUs? 
> (or dual core CPUs)
>
> You can boot the SMP kernel on a uniprocessor box, but it doesn't gain 
> you anything over the kernel compiled specifically for the single CPU.
>
> -Mike
Mike,

   Thanks for the reply. I understand this issue. The reason I need SMP 
is based on a less than obvious requirement that V4L only works with the 
SMP kernel. We have a special device driver written by WIS that we use 
for my video board that uses V4L and OSS.   SEE http://rgptech.com for 
hardware data etc.

   The SMP kernel is the only one that works with the driver and our 
application, which by the way, works very well at this point on 
2.6.11-1.27FC3smp .

Thanks,
Gordon