[TriLUG] Questions about Threading

[john broome]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Bollinger" <jeff01 at email.unc.edu>


> I'm not a programmer, but I am curious about threading and the advantage
> to having a multi-processor linux box (I guess running an smp kernel).
> Do programs have to be written to take advantage of a dual-processor, or
> will cycles be distributed evenly during a process?  How do you know if
> your program will support multiple processors?

I'm running the SMP kernel of mandrake 8.2 and from what I can tell it is
spread evenly.  I'm running distributed.net in the background and when I
have two instances running I see on gkrellm that both processors are pegged
at 99-100%, but when I only run one instance both processors are at 49-50%.

Other programs, I'm not sure how they handle the dual processor, it's just
really easy to see the difference with distributed..