On Fri, 2007-05-11 at 10:25 +1000, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> > I can't tell yet whether it's hardware or software, but I'm guessing the 
> > kernel at this point rather than hardware -- I have some 
> > /var/log/messages traces that don't look like hardware. Once I get a 
> > stable OS, I'll load Gentoo from it and do the real debugging. The 
> > 2.4.20 kernel in Gentoo stable has to be better that the 2.4.18s the 
> > other distros seem to be carrying.
> 
> What I find to be a cause of a lot of stability issues. Probably even 
> more so on multiprocessor/core systems is preemption. Voluntary 
> preemption is OK, but other preemption still seems to be a bit flaky at 
> places.

Umm... What?

I use preemption all the time on all of my machines, which are *all*
multi-processor or multi-core.  The kernel preemption works just fine on
all of them.  What tends to be the problem is shoddy APIC or ACPI
implementations on the cheaper (read, not server/workstation class)
motherboards.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation