[plug] APIC

[Cameron Patrick]

Michael Holland wrote:

| But what does it do?  OK, it controls interrupts, but whats the
| alternative? What do I loose by disabling it?

The alternative is the plain PIC that has been around since the XT,
which has a limited number of interrupts.  When you have too many
devices attached, they have to share interrupts which is slower (I
think).

| I see some references to SMP. Is apic much importance on a regular
| machine?

It's less important.  My understanding is that SMP machines /need/
apic whereas it just makes normal machines run better.

Cameron.