Quad Core on linuz

**tamoneya** · June 4th, 2008

ive got to think that your friend is referring to the 4 GB barrier that exists between 64 bit and 32 bit operating systems. It may also be that he knows that quad corse are 64 bit and he thinks he needs 64 bit vista to run them. any new processor nowadays (dual or quad) is a 64 bit processor and they run on both 32 and 64 bit OSes,

**Raccoon1400** · June 4th, 2008

My processor is a dual core, and I run 64bit arch. Most of thetime, the CPUs are scaled down to 50% (800MHz)

**Dropbear** · June 4th, 2008

Originally Posted by 50words

I am running Hardy on a quad-core Gateway and it blazes. I have no objective way to tell whether it is using the processor cores "properly," however.

Type this in a terminal

Code:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

It will tell you at what speed each core is operating at.

**Novega** · June 4th, 2008

Originally Posted by Dropbear

Type this in a terminal

Code:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

It will tell you at what speed each core is operating at.

Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread but if my cpu is operating at 1000MHz and it should be at 2.3GHz...how do I fix it? or should I not worry about it? (Desktop system)
I suspect the slowdown is due to power management settings, but I don't know how to fix them?

Code:

power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

On topic: the OP's friend is not alone in their assumption, I've been in some VERY heated arguements over the ability of an OS to handle multiple core processors.

**saulgoode** · June 4th, 2008

Originally Posted by Raccoon1400

A friend of mine said vista was the only OS that knew how to handle a quad core properly. I am almost certain this is wrong. Can anyone back me up?

I have never seen any comparisons made between Vista multi-core handling and Linux's. It is my understanding (quite limited, at that) that Linux scheduling across multiple processors used to not scale very well to quad-core and beyond. However, this was about a year ago during the 2.6.20-22 kernels (and it's not as though they failed completely, just that there was room for improvement).

However, the kernel developers have been quite diligently addressing the problem (the Completely Fair Scheduler was initially introduced into 2.6.23) and the developers seem very pleased with the progress made in the 2.6.24 and 2.6.25 kernels in processor efficiency in all configurations (not just quad- and octo-cores).

So it is possible your friend is actually quite knowledgeable on the topic, but that his information is outdated. It would be interesting to know further details about his assessment (assuming it is something more than Microsoft ad copy).

**Dropbear** · June 4th, 2008

Originally Posted by Novega

Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread but if my cpu is operating at 1000MHz and it should be at 2.3GHz...how do I fix it? or should I not worry about it? (Desktop system)
I suspect the slowdown is due to power management settings, but I don't know how to fix them?

Code:

power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

On topic: the OP's friend is not alone in their assumption, I've been in some VERY heated arguements over the ability of an OS to handle multiple core processors.

Are you running an AMD processor with cool'n quiet enabled? I had that problem. Disabling cool 'n quiet fixed it.

**Dropbear** · June 4th, 2008

I found this article http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item=897&num=1 . Although they are testing the ATI drivers the fact they are using a quad core shows linux performing well against vista.

**insane_alien** · June 4th, 2008

linux is used on machines with thousands of cores(supercomputers) i'm pretty sure it can handle 4 easily enough.

also, what about OSX that has very good multicore support as well(seeing as its roots are in unix this should be obvious too)