RedHat 7.3 -- Optimized Athlon kernel?

[bubba]

I will be running RedHat 7.3 on dual Athlons and I am wondering how to tell if it has a kernel optimized for Athlons or not. (I guess I would assume not) Should I see something in dmesg if it is? Do I need to just compile a new kernel?

 

[Drakkhen]

You will have to compile another kernel. You can look under /usr/src/linux-2.4/configs (I think that is the path) and you will see the file kernel-2.4.18-athlon-smp.config (I belive). This should have all of your default settings, plus support for SMP Athlons.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

i'm not sure if there is a generic k7 kernel in redhat or if theres just a generic 386 kernel that they use for every architecture. of course it wouldnt hurt to just compile your own, that is personally what i would do. its good practice if you havent done it.

 

[Armitage]

There is definitely a config file for building a stock RedHat kernel with Athlon optimizations, as Drakken said. For 7.2 at least, there is also an RPM with a binary optimized for Athlon. The RedHat install detects the Athlon cpu and installs the appropriate kernel.

I know this because a stock install of 7.2 on my Iwill KK266 won't boot due to problems with Athlon optimized kernels and some Via chipsets. I had to significantly underclock my box to boot up with the Athlon kernel, so I could then build a new one.

 

[bubba]

Hmmmm.... So, is there any way to know if I have the optimized kernel from the boot messages?

 

[Armitage]

Try this:

rpm -qa | grep kernel

 

[bubba]

Had already tried that. It didn't have any athlon-specific names.

I compiled the kernel with the athlon-smp config file and I don't see anything much different in the dmesg... Should I?

 

[Armitage]

Yea, you're right. rpm -qa doesn't give you the full name of the installed RPM

What does uname -ra show you? On my work box it show i686, but I don't know if that is from the kernel or not.

 

[bubba]

I just see i686 as well.

 

[Drakkhen]

Well, if you could get a copy of your default .config file that you are currently running, then you could look into that file and see what cpu optimizations there are. I am not sure how to do that with Redhat, though.

 

[bubba]

I did essentially that. I loaded the config file with Athlon in its name and I looked at that and then compiled it. I see no difference in the dmesg for the new kernel vs the stock kernel. I was just wondering how to probe which optimizations were made.

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: bubba
I did essentially that. I loaded the config file with Athlon in its name and I looked at that and then compiled it.

This may be a stupid question ... but did you install the new kernel & libs after you compiled it? You should then have a choice of kernels on bootup, and I'm pretty sure the architecture and 'smp' will show up in uname -ra

 

[bubba]

Yes, SMP shows up. I was just referring to the i686 arch.

 

[Drakkhen]

Originally posted by: bubba
I did essentially that. I loaded the config file with Athlon in its name and I looked at that and then compiled it. I see no difference in the dmesg for the new kernel vs the stock kernel. I was just wondering how to probe which optimizations were made.

Well, what I meant was, if you could somehow get the .config file for your currently running kernel and then take a look at it. I know you can do this in madrake, but, the src directories are a little different in RH.