Optimizing Linux for my processor
 

Hi,
I have Slackware linux installed using the kernal that came with the boot disk. bare.i image was used to create this disk. Im using an AMD Athlon processor running at 1100Mhz with a 256 KB cache. I have searched thourgh google on optimizing linux, but they are all based on Red Had. I just installed linux less then 2 weeks ago and still do not understand too much about it, other then just getting ftp and HL/CS servers up. Can anyone explain to me how to optimize my kernel or post a link to a site that explains how to do this on Slackware.

Thanks,
MarleyGPN

optimizing your kernel will revolve around you recompiling it to suit your processor, this procedure will be identical for any standard linux distribution. just read the howto at http://tldp.org

The architecture on my linux is i686, is this right for my processor?

Yes, I would reccomend against compiling the kernel for athlon, I have all my software compiled for mcpu=athlon-xp but the kernel is 686 as the optimiser buggers a lot of stuff up, you will almost certainly get unresolved symbol errors when inserting some modules, which is no good. Recompiling the kernel won't do much to speed things up in terms of reality. The kernel only has the CPU a very small amount of the time, and you would just as well compile for i386 for all it would do.
If you want to actually optomise Linux for your kernel, take a look at gentoo or sourcerer which download the source code for all applications and build it with your C compiler flags.
The insatllers aren't very nice, but that's what you need to do if you're serious about optomising Linux for your cpu.

Does the slackware installer compile a linux kernel for your processor. I originaly installed this on a pentium II system and then moved it to the Athlon system. The HL servers are running much better and im using the same hardware (except for the motherboard and proc) that my old computer had. The only hardware that I use is just the two network cards and the voodoo3. Linux is running fine but would it optimize it if I reinstall it, or does it just install a standerd set of files.

no it does not. any kernel it would install would be
precompiled. compiling a kernel for a specific processor
makes a big difference with some intel processors, but
not really with an athlon. An athlon runs code optimized
for differenct processors almost equally well. I'm saying
that if you optimized a kernel for a pentium 2, an athlon
would be about as fast with that code as it would if the
code was optimized for an athlon.
You would make a bigger difference recompiling
some of the software you use the most, that is cpu
intensive, with optimized compiler flags.
You should look at a gcc howto for that, or search
the web or gcc site.

Yeah, recompiling the kernel won't speed much up, and the standard kernel is compiled for i386.