I take it the grub stuff meant that if you add the option "maxcpu=1" (without quotes) to the smb-enabled kernel line in Grub's menu.lst and boot that, the kernel should only use one cpu. Note that I don't have multiple cpus so I can't try.
When Grub comes up, press ESC if needed to bring the menu to the screen where you can select kernels to boot. Hilight the kernel you want to modify, then press "e" (it says in the bottom to press "e" to edit commands before booting). You should get some lines from that boot section; hilight the one that starts with word "kernel", press "e" again to edit the line (it says that in the bottom of the screen). Type, without quotes, "maxcpu=1" along the other options (but before "--" if that is at the end of the line), separated from the other options by spaces, and press ENTER to accept changes. Then press "b" to boot that kernel. See if it worked; if it did, change Grub configuration permanently (the above is forgotten next time you reboot): as root, open /boot/grub/menu.lst in a text editor, locate the kernel line of the kernel you want to edit, and type maxcpu=1 among the options just like in the above example. Save the file and it's there. Remember to set a Grub password to prevent people from taking the option off (if that's what you intend) just like that, and possibly a BIOS password to prevent them from booting off some other media than your harddisk (thus circumventing your Grub settings).
that shows information about your cpu(s)..like I said, I don't have multiple units so I don't know how it looks if you do
but I assume if you don't have more than one cpu enabled, you won't see information about the others.
And of course the kernel option doesn't work if the kernel doesn't support more than one cpu
I just wonder why you would want to restrict the amount of cpus..
