[plug] SMP queries ...

[Nick Bannon]

Here's another reply (hi, Matt! ::-) ).

Nick.

On Thu, Nov 25, 1999 at 03:09:19AM +0000, Trevor Phillips wrote:
> Two queries:
> 
> Any suggestions on how to set up a system (pref Debian) with both an SMP
> kernel, and a non-SMP kernel, with modules support? My understanding is the
> modules need to be recompiled for SMP/Non-SMP, and the default location for
> them is /lib/modules/<kernel version>/*, which makes no distinction between SMP
> and Non-SMP. Is there an easy way to have two Module dirs for the same kernel
> vers and tell the kernel to use a different one?

Well, the simple way is to use monolithic kernels and do without modules
- then you just have a lilo entry for each kernel you want.

But... what you probably want is the Debian "kernel-package" package.
It's how you build a Debian kernel package and it's very straightforward.
Amongst other things it makes if very straightforward to compile kernels
on a fast machine to stick onto a slow machine, even with modules.

Check out /usr/doc/kernel-package/README.gz to get started, then
/usr/doc/kernel-package/Flavours.gz to find out about compiling two
"flavours" of the same kernel. You'll need to tweak the Makefile and
klogd.

> Secondly, any ideas on monitoring CPU activity? Basically, I'm after "top" or
> similar meter (pref that doesn't require XWin for logging), which logs to a
> file and can display an analysis/graph of stored entries... I'm after the
> utilisation of SMP when running certain apps (Ok, so it's Quake3Arena Demo,
> mainly. ^_^), where watching a procmeter in a window doesn't cut it.

I don't have a ready made answer, but I'd like to hear what you come up
with.

You could start with ;

while true; do
  uptime > /tmp/uptime.log
  sleep 10
done

or "top -n 1" instead of "uptime".

Nick.

-- 
  Nick Bannon  | "I made this letter longer than usual because
nick at it.net.au | I lack the time to make it shorter." - Pascal