cvs commit: src/sys/amd64/conf GENERIC

[Coleman Kane]

On 12/14/06, David O'Brien <obrien at freebsd.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 13, 2006 at 08:13:24PM -0800, mjacob at freebsd.org wrote:
> > Secondly, I would *like* to have SMP on as a default in RELENG_6 for
> > amd64, as it would avoid doing what I've done twice already- fresh
> > sysinstall may or may not have installed an SMP kernel but going off and
> > building GENERIC then lost me my SMP. It's sort a violation of POLA.
>
> Rather close what happened to me and what lead to the commit.
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 13, 2006 at 10:17:02PM -0700, Scott Long wrote:
> > mjacob at freebsd.org wrote:
> > > Scott Long wrote:
> > > > There wasn't a full switchover to SMP at 6.0 because an SMP kernel
> > > > on a UP system incurs a measurable runtime overhead, and we wanted
> > > > to present a system that showed the best of FreeBSD to people who
> > > > wanted to run it
>
> Then why is sparc64's GENERIC kernel SMP in RELENG_6?
>
>
> > > But David's point is that most AMD64 boxes *are* SMP, not UP.  Is
> > > that wrong?
> >
> > 1. There are plenty of single core Opterons and Athlon64 chips still
> > in service.
>
> A few points:
>
> * FreeBSD is predominately a server OS, not home desktop OS.
>
> * Practically all single core Opteron's are used in multi-socket systems.
> There are very, very few Opteron single socket, single core Opteron's in
> service as there are only a very small handful of single socket 940-pin
> motherboards.
>
> * Most Athlon64 single-core CPU's are run in 32-bit "i386" mode.
> FreeBSD/i386 isn't the platform I (and presumably Matt) are talking
> about.
>
> > Maybe AMD sells more SMP systems now than UP systems, but their prior
> > sales of UP systems didn't magically disappear overnight.
>
> This is not an AMD-only situation.
>
> Intel has been selling dual-core processors since 18 April 2005, and now
> sells quad-core processors.  Also, Intel kept Long Model (i.e., EM64T)
> to the server/workstation segment until its dual-core processors.  For
> instance, most Intel laptops cannot run FreeBSD/AMD64.
>
> --
> -- David  (obrien at FreeBSD.org)
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Just to let you know, there are still a significant number of amd64
single-core laptops that are still sold these days.