Re: SUMMARY: pentium optimized debian discussion
On Wed, Jul 29, 1998 at 09:32:20AM -0700, Stephen Zander wrote:
> >>>>> "Joey" == Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net> writes:
>
> Waht, if any, difference do the MMX instructions make? My IBM 760XL
> laptop (166MHz MMX) reports 330.96 bogo-mips & I've always presumed
> that MMX was responsible. Does pegcs/egcs -mpentim support the MMX
> instructions yet?
Ha! What makes you think that BogoMIPS tell you anything about your
processor? From the BogoMIPS mini-HOWTO:
>From Lars Wirzenius,' wirzeniu@kruuna.Helsinki.FI mail of 9 September
1993, explaining Bogomips, with additional detailed information by Wim
van Dorst:
`MIPS is short for Millions of Instructions Per Second. It
is a measure for the computation speed of a program. Like
most such measures, it is more often abused than used prop
erly (it is very difficult to justly compare MIPS for dif
ferent kinds of computers).
BogoMips are Linus's invention. The kernel (or was it a
device driver?) needs a timing loop (the time is too short
and/or needs to be too exact for a non-busy-loop method of
waiting), which must be calibrated to the processor speed of
the machine. Hence, the kernel measures at boot time how
fast a certain kind of busy loop runs on a computer. "Bogo"
comes from "bogus", i.e, something which is a fake. Hence,
the BogoMips value gives some indication of the processor
speed, but it is way too unscientific to be called anything
but BogoMips.
The reasons (there are two) it is printed during bootup is
that a) it is slightly useful for debugging and for checking
that the computers caches and turbo button work, and b)
Linus loves to chuckle when he sees confused people on the news.'
Regards,
Marcus
--
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