BogoMIPS (Re: [plug] Bogus Sound Card Problems)

[bburns at erggroup.com]

Cool,

Tony Croned:
> The reason you saw a jump was some where arround 2.2.13 Alan Cox changed the
> way it was calculated.  which resulted in a vastly differnt number.

Then Matt Noted:
> No, the timing loop is only used inside the kernel - it uses the same
> loop for timing-related functions (like sleep() but on a kernel level)

> As Tony said, the way it is calculated changed recently, but so long as
> all parts of the kernel use the same new function (which they do) it makes
> no difference in speed anywhere else.

> All it means is that your computer now takes a much shorter time to "do
> nothing" (It's an empty loop)

> hence the Bogo (bogus) part of BogoMIPS.

> - Matt (1867.78 BogoMIPS and proud of it)

Understood - its an empty loop used to calibrate timing issues in the Kernel...

I think they should increase it by an order of magnitude every time they release
a new kernel - this'll mean that anyone who uses this number for ego purposes
will have incentives to keep their kernel recent ;)

- Ben

10^9 BogoMIPS - apply for your BogoMIP accellerator card today ;P