Kernel for SMP box

Woollhara · n00b Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 55 Location: London, UK

Hi

I'm going to re-install Gentoo (from 1.4rc4, stage 1) on the following setup:
- dual P3 733MHx on Supermicro PIIIDME mobo
- 512Mb RAM
- Firewire + USB2.0 (PCI)
- Soundblaster Live! 1024 (PCI)
- Adaptec SCSI 29140 64bits (PCI)
- Promise Ultra ATA 100TX2 (PCI)

2 x ATA 100 HD (42Gb & 80Gb) connected to the Promise controller

1 x ATA 33 HD connected to 1st mobo IDE
1 x ATAPI CD-R/CD-RW/DVD connected to 2nd mobo IDE
1 x Tape drive connected to 2nd mobo IDE
1 x SCSI CD-R/CD-RW coonected to Adaptec controller

1 x external Firewire HD enclosure containing 2 HDs (120Gb & 20Gb)
1 x iPod (30Gb)

I'd like to hear from people running SMP config about the stability of the different kernel available in Gentoo. Also the kernel must have EVMS2 (or at least LVM). My preference for the filesystem is ReiserFS. Last but not least the firewire stuff is really important as I'm running all my Mp3s off my firewire HD enclosure and also need to access my iPod.

I would privilege stability over performance.

Finally will it be better to wait for kernels based on 2.4.21 which apparently has just been released (in fact, it's rc8 without changes).

Thanks a lot.
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/Woollhara

Varus · n00b Joined: 05 Jun 2003 Posts: 3

There are some 2.4.21 (release candidate) kernels available via portage.

I'm currently running the gs-sources (2.4.21_rc6) kernel on my dual PII-333 system, and it's been rock-solid for me. I had frequent lock-ups using the gentoo-sources (2.4.20r5) kernel, but I strongly suspect that was due to problems with the aic7xxx module, which has seen numerous fixes in the 2.4.21 kernel.

I'd suggest trying the gs-sources kernel first.

Also, if you haven't already, have a look at the list of kernels/versions available via portage: http://www.gentoo.org/dyn/pkgs/sys-kernel/index.xml

Woollhara · n00b Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 55 Location: London, UK

I don't think the gs-sources kernel contains EVMS2 though...
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/Woollhara

metalac · Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2003 12:34 am Post subject:

i have a dual box at home and it's really happy running the vanilla-sources. I got 2.4.20 in it right now, will up it to 2.4.21 in few days once the things on kernel.org settle down.

Although if you would really like a stable system you might want to invest into some better hardware, mainly some good ECC memory and such.
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>>>>> Ignorance is bliss <<<<<

Varus · n00b Joined: 05 Jun 2003 Posts: 3

I looked in both the gentoo-sources and gs-sources kernel trees, and it looks to me like they've got the same EVMS support. They also have the same EVMS options under "make menuconfig".

Dragon561 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 25 Oct 2002 Posts: 112

I am running dual Athlon MP 1900+'s and I am using the gentoo-sources. No problems here as far as functionality.