You should also compile in Enhanced Real Time Clock support (found under Character devices) for a multiprocessor box. Not sure why - just remember reading it somewhere that you're supposed to.
Gary Vetter
ND Retirement and Investment Office
701 328-9879
-----Original Message-----
From: debian-user-request@lists.debian.org [mailto:debian-user-request@lists.debian.org] On Behalf Of Johann Koenig
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 11:35 PM
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Multiprocessor Linux boxes
On Tuesday February 24 at 11:31pm
Jeff Elkins <jeffelkins@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >I've been in discussions with a client about doing some numerical
> >modeling once I get back from deployment. This may very well turn
> >out to be a major portion of my science work.
> >
> >To that end, I'm curious about what you know about multi-processor
> >Linux boxes. I'm interested in trying up yo four processors
> >(probably start with a dual proccessor, but eventually add up to
> >four). I suspect there are quad processor MB out there.
> >
> >I know Debian handles this right out of the box, but how hard is it
> >to compile for the additional processors? Have you ever priced this
> >sort of machine? I'm curious about how much I'm talking about.
> >
>
> I'm researching this for a currently deployed naval officer (a
> meteorologist) who's internet connection is a bit chancy...he's
> somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. Any info or links
> appreciated...
I recently picked up an Abit BP6 (www.bp6.com) off ebay. It's the only motherboard to support dual socket 370 Celerons, which makes it dirt cheap, which is why I got it.
For the kernel, I'm pretty used to compiling myself, so it wasn't too much harder. The only relevant change (I remember, that is) was to enable SMP and limit the number of processors to 2, only because they said it bloats the kernel a little bit for each extra you compile in.
That being said, I belive Debian has smp versions of some of the kernels readily available from apt-get, with a name similar to kernel-image-$VERSION-$ARCH-smp.
Because the BP6 is a wee bit on the slow side (dual 300A's, running at 375), I like to strip as much out of the kernel as possible. Same goes for a dual pentium-pro motherboard that I also got on ebay. Expect it doesn't have a VRM, so the second CPU is doing nothing at the moment.
Of course, now that I've got a dual proc system, I will never go back. I'm currently waiting for the AMD Opterons to go down in price, because I've pretty much decided that my next box will be at least a dualie, a quad mobo if I can afford it.
If you look around on ebay, there are some dual Itanium systems pretty cheap ($750-$1000 range), and I've seen quad Pentium Pro systems for less than $300 (not including shipping, unfortunately)
The ultimate in SMP is, of course, Sun Computers. Hundreds of CPUs, Hundreds of Gigs of RAM, Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I'd say your best bet is to find something on ebay, then check out http://google.com and http://google.com/linux and see what other people say about it.
--
-johann koenig
Today is Setting Orange, the 55th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3170 My public pgp key: http://mental-graffiti.com/pgp/johannkoenig.pgp