For Suse Linux Distribution.
Some basic Linux IA-64 kernel rpm queries. I do not have actual rpms with me to investigate, but before going for it, I needed the following information.

Of the 5 kernel rpms mentioned below
1.k_deflt-2.4.21-112.ia64.rpm
2.k_itanium2-2.4.21-112.ia64.rpm
3.k_itanium2-smp-2.4.21-112.ia64.rpm
4.k_page-64k-2.4.21-112.ia64.rpm
5.k_smp-2.4.21-112.ia64.rpm

I would like to know

1.Whether all the the RPMS mentioned above are for 64bit machines
only or can they be installed on 32 bit machine as well.


2.Of the 5 rpms mentioned above the first two can we please know
the exact difference between them

3.Of the 5 rpms mentioned above the 3rd and 5th are SMP rpms.
can we please know the exact difference between them.

4. Can we please know what the 4th rpm mentioned above is.


Any help on this would be great. We are planning to porting one of drivers to these
kernels. so this information would be really helpful. Any helpful on this would be
great.

You could download the kernels and use rpm, yast2 or kpackage to query the description that comes with the rpm file. Or you could use mc (Midnight Commander) to extract the description.

If you are writing drivers, I assume that you are looking for more particular differences between each version, than what I was starting to type. MP is the kernel to use for multiprocessor systems. It will use spin-locks for example which a single processor kernel wouldn't.

The Itanium kernels are obviously optimized for the Itanium processor. There may be other differences reflecting differences between two types of Intel or AMD 64 bit processors. For example the number of MTRR registers may differ.

A 32 bit kernel will probably use a 4k page size. On a 64 bit kernel it could be 4k, 8k, 16k or 64k. A larger page size allows for a
larger virtual memory address space. I think the other 64 bit kernels may use 8k.

You might want to look in the SuSE website. In my opinion, users with Itanium multiprocessors will be using
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 or 9. Which ever particular kernel these use by default will probably be the one you
will want to start looking at first.

I hope my response hasn't been totally useless.

Thanks for the reply. It helps to some extend.

Downloading the rpms via my modem is going to take sometime. I think these
rpms are not easily available on internet.

One who have Suse Linux 9.0 Sevice Pack 3 can be easily provide me the details.
I tried Suse support and information, but no reply till now.

I need to know these details before going for Suse Linux 9.0.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

Thanks and Regards
Deepak