[nflug] Hardware questions

[Ken Smith]

On Wed, 2006-09-27 at 16:56 -0700, David J. Andruczyk wrote:
> Hyperthreaded cpus show up as two cpu's in linux.  The Linux scheduler
> is smart enough to know the difference between dual independant cores
> and a hyperthreaded single core. so it can make more effective use of
> it than windows can. 

Just a note of caution - there are security risks with hyperthreaded
CPUs on public multi-user systems.  Definitely not something to even
think about on a personal type machine.  Basically since you're talking
about hyperthreading a single core it's *possible* for one process to
snoop at data from what it's sharing the core with in various arcane
ways.  This *may* be where the original poster got the idea
hyperthreading only works on Windows.  There are other systems out there
that default to having hyperthreading turned off but with some effort
you can turn it on.

And just in case it's not obvious it's a non-issue on the true dual-core
CPUs. :-)

-- 
                                                Ken Smith
- From there to here, from here to      |       kensmith at cse.buffalo.edu
  there, funny things are everywhere.   |
                      - Theodore Geisel |

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