My wish list for 6.1

[Sergey Babkin]

Kris Kennaway wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 10:34:09PM -0800, Avleen Vig wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 10:40:22AM -0500, Martin Cracauer wrote:
> > > > 2.  SMP kernels for install.  Right now we only install a UP kernel, for
> > > > performance reasons.  We should be able to package both a UP and SMP
> > > > kernel into the release bits, and have sysinstall install both.  It
> > > > should also select the correct one for the target system and make that
> > > > the default on boot.
> > >
> > > If people are concerned about performance, I benchmarked a 6-beta
> > > kernel SMP versus UP on a socket 939 Opteron.
> >
> > If those results are accurate, there's no real reason not to just use an
> > SMP kernel on default install?
> 
> Just because it didn't manifest on this workload, doesn't mean it
> doesn't on others.  I think this is the point :)

Hm, how about this (similar to what Linuxes do):

Use an SMP kernel for the installation boot, so that the install
scripts can discover the SMP machines.

Have two GENERIC kernels built and packaged, UP and SMP.

The install scripts then install the kernel matching the absent
or present SMP (like Linux distros do). Probably with an option of
a manual override through a menu. Maybe better yet, install both
(or allow to install both) and allow to choose the one booted 
through a sysinstall menu.

-SB