Swapping Motherboards?

[Rick Stevens]

Harold Hallikainen wrote:
> OK, so I have a chance! This is using IDE drives, Intel ethernet chip(s),
> and SMP. Does the new motherboard need to have 2 processors, or will Linux
> figure that out during boot?

I think a chart will be helpful:

	Old Board	New Board	Status
	SMP		SMP		Fine
	SMP		UP		Fine, but runs in UP mode
	UP		SMP		Fine, but upgrade kernel to SMP
	UP		UP		Fine

In case 2, you will be running an SMP kernel on a UP machine.  It'll
run, but it'll be a tad slower than if you ran a UP kernel on a UP
machine.

In case 3, only one processor will be active.  Upgrade to an SMP kernel
as soon as possible and tell grub to use the SMP kernel.

One other caveat:  In case your new motherboard uses a different
processor, remember that i686 code will run on an AMD Athlon, but Athlon
code will NOT run on an i686.  Personally, I prefer Athlons with
Athlon-optimized kernels.  They're faster.

Also note that an AMD Opteron will run both i686 and Athlon code, but
neither the i686 nor the Athlon can run Opteron code--it's those extra, 
pesky 32-bits that get in the way.  ;-)  (Opterons, BTW, just simply
ROCK under Linux!)
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-         If this is the first day of the rest of my life...         -
-                        I'm in BIG trouble!                         -
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