# Oprofile

[Will Cohen]

 > Just a quick question on oprofile.
 >
 > I saw today on Freshmeat that Oprofile v 0.71 is out
 > (detailed code profiling tool).
 > A bit of further poking around revealed that there is an
 > Oprofile RPM (0.7 version) available, which is very convenient,
 > and I was able it install using Yum. Very good!

Yes, 0.7.1 oprofile just came out. OProfile 0.7.1 expects 
/dev/oprofile/pointer_size, which the FC-1 kernel doesn't have. The 
backport of the oprofile kernel support from 2.6 was done before they 
were added. So the new OProfile won't work. I should check into getting 
the that and the thread patch into the FC-1 kernel, so 0.7.1 will can 
work with the kernel. Alternatively, the 2.6 kernel that should work.

 > I note though that the oprofile module is built into
 > the 2.4.22-1.2115.nptlsmp kernel only - the uniprocessor one
 > hasn't got it. Anyone know why? Not looking to point fingers,
 > just curious as there might be an interesting reason.

In the past there were problems with oprofile and laptops. To make sure 
that one of the kernels would work on laptops oprofile was disabled on 
the uniprocessor kernels (how many SMP laptops have you seen?). If you 
need oprofile, just install the SMP kernel.

-Will