Just a quick question:
Is there anyone installing Linux (Fedora or Debian) on an Intel Pentium 4 machine with Hyper-Threading Technology cause any Installation and usage problem?

Any suggestion will be very much appreciated!

I have an Intel P4 2.8C w/ HT technology running Gentoo Linux. No HT-related problems whatsoever in the 15 months I've been running it.

The current Linux scheduler is HT-aware. You should not experience any problems. I believe that you do need to do an SMP build in order to actually use that feature, but the machine will not mis-behave if you don't.

You should enable both SMP and SMT features in the kernel to make use of HT. In theory, a straight SMP build will work on single-processor SMT/HT machines.

Thank you for you replies! Sounds like there shouldn't be a problem installing and using Linux with HT processor. However, I've heard someone said that using Xandros with HT having a lot of problem with their memory all not showing up. Does anybody installing and using Fedora (or Debian) encounter this kind of problem? I am interested in installing these distros on my computer with HT processor.

By the way, is there any detailed SMP and SMT description that I can take a look at anywhere? I'm not very familiar with these.

I've used Debian on a P4HT before, and it worked fine.

SMP stands for Symmetric Multi-Processing. Simply, this is a single computer with mutliple identical processors. It's the underlying technology for simultaneous execution of multiple processes/threads.
SMT is Simultaneous Multi-Threading. This is where a single processor can use unsued portions of its core to process a second thread.

Thanks for your info.

One thing I am not sure is that: why enable both SMP and SMT? In my understanding (probably not exactly right), Intel HT is Hyper-Threading (single processor, not really multi-processors physically) and why not just enable SMT? It seems to me that SMP is for multi-processors. If I am wrong , please correct me.

One more thing: Is rebuilding a kernel difficult if I need to enable SMP and SMT? I've never done that before.

Rebuilding the kernel has never been difficult for me (well, not since 2.4 came out ). I'd be happy to help you with any sticking points you have.

SMP is for multi-processors but since SMT technology makes a processor look like multiple processors, you need both. And the kernel configuration has SMP as a dependency of SMT. In other words, there's a lot of overlapping code. SMT just adjusts how the scheduler works somewhat.

Well, I've got a HT, and run a SMP kernel (FC4). You don't need to compile the kernel -- I'ts available for download on the Fedora web site.

Been running the SMP kernel for about a year now with no problems. (On both FC3 and FC4.) What you do get is a multi-processor display when you look at CPU usage in KDE, and the usage is, in fact, usually different.

Anyhow, I'd recommend the SMP route, using the pre-compiled kernel. (As I recall, if you're installing from the Fedora DVD, you're asked which kernel you want to use. But it's been a while, so my recollection may be wrong.)

FYI... I'm 99% sure that Fedora's SMP kernels also have the SMT option switched on. I could be wrong.

Thanks guys!

I'll probably start to install Linux next week.(pretty busy recently, but eager to install Linux) I'll try first the pre-compiled SMP kernel if there is an optition there during installation. If SMT is not enabled or there is no SMP kernel option, I'll try to recompile the kernel to enable both SMP and SMT. If I'd encounter any problem concerning rebuilding the kernel, I'll come back and ask about it.(thanks to your offer, Matir)

See you guys later!

No problem. Always be glad to help, like I said. It's what I do best, or at least I like to think so.