>I thought all the kernels were SMP-enabled now, no? Didn't Debian do
>away with the distinction between SMP and non-SMP kernels? At least,
>when I look at what's available with aptitude, all the kernel images
>labelled with "-smp" are given as "for transition only."
Unless I'm mistaken the 486 kernel that came with my i386 installation was not smp enabled. I did cat /proc/cpuinfo and could only see one processor running.
However, I did as Andrei Popescu suggested and installed the -k7-smp kernel, which seems to work just fine. I also tried the -686-smp kernel, and it worked too. I feel really
dumb, because I didn't know my amd64 processor could use kernel variants that were optimized for other processors. I take it the k7 kernel is preferable to the 686 one, since my processor is Athlon?
Anyway, thanks a lot for helping me out with this! I'm almost done setting up stuff the way I want it. Using a fresh debian desktop is like diving into cool, clean water on a hot summers day :).
/landhaj, happy camper