dual processor

Socr420,

I'm not sure whether mandrake would has dual process support by default (off shelf).

I would suspect that you might need to get the kernel souce and add SMP support, and recompile a new kernel.

perhaps other members might have a different view.

cheers.

BlackDiamond: Are you sure? I don't have an RPM based box to test it with but kernel and kernel-smp would suggest that they are different packages and wouldn't conflict.

You are right, the Kernel packages themselves would not conflict, but your dependencies may (if you are using a different smp kernel version then your regular version).  That is whay I recommend always using the switch "-ivh" whenever installing any package that has the word "kernel" in it.  You never know, maybe Socr already has an SMP kernel package on there that works, and may break the installation by -Uvh 'ing over it.  You can always delete the old version later when you have the new one working.

Okay, I got Linux - SMP to be installed, but when it tries to boot, it just sits at "Calibrating delay loop..."
It says it has detected proc #0 and #1.  Why does it just sit at the calibrating delay loop line?  

don't know if this really helps you, butI  run SuSE7.0 personal Edition on a dual Pentium 133MHZ system and the distro detected the dual  processors straight  out  the box.

Mandrake 8.2 detected the processors the first time (I just didn't realize Linux - SMP was the dual proc startup), but it always freezes at the calibrating delay loop.  What the @#$K does that even mean?  

First of all, what kernel version(s) do you have installed right now?

The calibration of the delay loop is doing exactly that.  There is a specific function ( udelay() ) that needs to have very precise timing in order for some device drivers to work.  So, the delay value needs to be calculated for each CPU.  This calibration will report how many times a specific set of operations take place in one second in "BogoMips".

Here is a decent explanation of what BogoMips are...

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/BogoMips-2.html

Not sure what would cause it to lock up at that point though.

One thing I would try is installing a kernel version compiled for i386 (compatibility).  You may be having problems with extensions compiled in the i586 version (if that's what you are trying to run) that are not compatible with the vanilla pentium CPU.  If you still have problems, then you may want to grab the source and compile it on that machine.

it is version 4.2.18-6.  It has actually started up a few times, however it is very unstable and applications will just start crashing right away.  I downloaded all three images of the installation, but where and how do I get the i386 version?  Is that compilation on one of those images, but I just have to use a different sort of command?

sorry, that version is 2.4.18-6

I can get it to boot up in Linux SMP mode if I hit the reset button a few times.  Could it be perhaps my stepping codes aren't exactly the same?  Also, I tried to make a couple of programs while in uniprocessor mode, but can't seem to get the files to execute.  I mean, normally (on my school's server) I just type a.out and the program will start up, but on this it doesn't work.  If I have the full gui up and running, I can go into the file's properties and say run in terminal.  Then if I click on the file, it'll open in a terminal just fine.  How do I go about executing my output files?  

try ./a.out instead of a.out

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