Kent West wrote:
2)
If you're really running a 386, that kernel is acceptable, but if you've got a Pentium-class machine, you might want to upgrade to a -586, or -686, or -K7, etc kernel, which is optimized for these other CPUs. Just do an "apt-get search kernel-image | more" to see what kernels are available for you to download with your current "/etc/apt/sources.list". You might get a nice little speed increase, etc.
I think the benefits of doing that are commonly overestimated. Think on it a moment. This is from my Athlon on which I've "tested" the new mobo by the time-honoured technique of compiling some kernels.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ procinfo Linux 2.6.7-1-k7 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) (gcc 3.3.4 ) #1 Thu Jul 8 06:45:35 EDT 2004 1CPU [kowari.(none)]
Memory: Total Used Free Shared Buffers Mem: 517252 354632 162620 0 36360 Swap: 524280 0 524280
Bootup: Sat Aug 21 08:31:30 2004 Load average: 0.00 0.00 0.00 1/173 16494
user : 14:13:31.77 9.0% page in : 0 nice : 18:08:35.94 11.5% page out: 0 system: 3:11:01.14 2.0% swap in : 0 idle : 5d 0:19:52.64 76.2% swap out: 0 uptime: 6d 13:57:35.88 context :170037413
irq 0: 568742105 timer irq 14: 4749768 ide0 irq 1: 730 i8042 irq 17: 350309 ide2, ide3 irq 5: 2 irq 18: 117704 SiS 7012 irq 7: 2 parport0 [3] irq 19: 6351531 eth0 irq 8: 4 rtc irq 20: 172 ohci_hcd irq 9: 0 acpi irq 21: 0 ohci_hcd irq 11: 2 irq 23: 232551 ehci_hcd irq 12: 2
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$
Look at the numbers beside user:, nice:, system: etc.
Essentially, "system" means "time in kernel." User and nice are spent in handling my work, and in runtime libraries such as glibc.
User+nic ads up to 20.5. System is only ten percent of this.
Now if the k7 kernel I'm running is ten percent faster than the corresponding 386 kernel, how much have I gained?
If I have a performance problem, the econimic solution is to throw in more hardware. It happens this is an Athlon 1.4 Ghz. An Athlon XP 3000 isn't horribly expensive, and will produce a measurable benefit.
For most users, there is no point in being picky about which kernel you're running. It would take simply ages to recover the time spent in installing a new kernel and rebooting. And that's without spending time carefully selecting compile options, kernel components etc.
There are people to whom those are commercially important, but they're probably trying to squeeze Linux into routers, toasters, washing machines, watches and USB drives.
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Cheers John
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