Why do I have an SMP kernel?
 

I was just reading somewhere that smp kernels are for dual processor machines and for some reason RedHat installed kernel 2.4.20-8smp on my system. I do not have a dual processor. It seems to have been working fine, though. Should I change this, or is it okay like this?

It is fine. Redhat includes SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing) in there stock kernels so it'll work with SMP machines without the need to recompile the kernel. It'll still work fine on a uni-processor machine as the kernel will detect there is only one processor on boot.

youre not providing a whole lot to go on here. did you install by the rh9 discs? did you just roll with the defaults?
more importantly: did you select server as your config? if so, do you link with any windows systems?
you really got to get "stupid specific" with your setup, what you are dealing with, and what you want.
if have a compaq 5304 desktop, and use 19 gigs of RAID diskspace. smp worked, because it leaves you the flexibility to hook up with other cpus on a LAN or WAN system, linux boxes or otherwise. this is why i'm getting deep here.
what you have now is a box that can be expanded to your wildest/wierdest dreams.
the default config (i think it's called anaconda) sensed your setup and gave you the most usable.
am i even close?
luck -O.

I installed by RedHat 9.0 discs that I made from .iso images. I basically let the install program (anaconda) decide what is best to install. I wan't really given a lot of options... it did most of the install on its own.

I did not knowingly select server as my config. My machine is networked with one windows machine.

My computer has an Intel 2.60 GHz CPU with Hyperthreading technology , an Intel 865PERL motherboard, 120GB Maxtor hard drive, 1GB DDR400 RAM, nVidia geForce 5600 256 MB graphics. It's hooked up to a LAN with that windows PC and a WAN for my cable internet. I don't know it that helps.

So, SMP will be fine, then? Can't cause any problems?

Ummm.... SMP is for machines with an SMP configuration, like Dual Opeteron machines, Dual Xeons, Dual G5's, Quad Xeons, things that involve one motherboard, one chipset, more then one CPU. SMP isn't when you "hook up with other systems on a WAN or LAN". You use clustering software like the beowolf software to share processing power across multiple machines on a network.

As I said, it certainly doesn't hurt to have SMP enabled in the kernel even if you only have on CPU.

SMP Kernel
 

If you have a "C" type Pentium processor 2.6ghz or higher the CPU Chip looks like a dual CPU system because of hyperthreading (HT) core, actually runs 2 instruction execution cores(instructions are split up where they can) but the threads(RESULTS) come out of 1 set of pins on chip. I think that
HT SMP can help processor manage the system better.