SMP vs Non-SMP Kernel questions
 

One thing I notice about Puppy Linux is that it does not have SMP. I google around and found comments from Barry (Puppy's creator) that he didn't create a SMP because he didn't want incompatibility problems with older hardware. Further research is required.

I have looked into the issue a bit and have some questions:

1. According to various articles, most distros are actually on SMP. This includes RedHat and Debian. There were some incompatibility with single processors in earlier release, but they have been fixed. Is this correct?

2. There's some indication that running with SMP adds some overhead, which would be a concern if your distro was design for very low power machines. Anyone have idea of performance hit SMP vs Non-SMP?

3. What happens if I run a Non-SMP kernel on a dual core? Is one of the core inactive then? When I run power management, does it apply to only one of the core or both cores at the same time?

4. If I recompile my kernel with SMP, I would have to recompile and reinistall all of the modules?

Paul

I am going to try and answer some of your questions here...
One of the cores will, in fact, be inactive. I am not sure what power management will do, though it would be interesting to find out.

Yerp. But then, if you recompile your kernel for anything, it is highly recommended that you recompile all of the modules anyway, and in most cases you will have to.