i just got a new system with opensuse 11.2, runs desktop version of kernel 2.6.31. when i started the system i immediately
noticed that only 1 of 8 cores was recognized. started digging and found issues others have reported with this version of the kernel and a boot option of “nolapic”. i had the os installed before system was shipped to me and this option was clearly intentionally added to the menu.lst file by whoever configured the system initially (“diff /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.old” showed it). he (guy who configured) confirmed it was added to prevent issues from the known bug where system crashes without nolapic option.
i tried removing this nolapic option from menu.lst (thru yast) and was able to shut down and reboot and all cores were then recognized. confirmed in /proc/cmdline and /proc/cpuinfo things looked ok. however, a subsequent reboot with nothing else changed lead to a crash on startup, presumably due to the known bug without nolapic.
from what i’ve read in posts such as https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14525 and Has the 11.2 RC2 kernel stolen a CPU? - openSUSE Forums it looks like i should try to upgrade my kernel.
i wanted some advice from others who are more experienced before i pull the trigger. (i’m an experienced C/C++ app developer but new to kernel builds)
i found a newer kernel version kernel-desktop-2.6.34-37.1.x86_64.rpm on Index of /repositories/Kernel:/HEAD/openSUSE_11.2/x86_64 and wanted to know the following:
Q1. is this is a good versoin to try out? anyone using it or heard of stability issues?
Q2. any good step-by-step kernel rebuild sites? i’ve seen a few, but not sure how accurate they are.
Q3. is there a way to do the rebuild end-to-end using YAST?
system and problem summary below:
-
uname -a
Linux linux-uc2t 2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2010-03-16 21:25:39 +0100 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux -
i have 2 intel xeon 5520 cpus (each quad core), using “nolapic” in menu.lst only one cpu is initialized by kernel
cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 26
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5520 @ 2.27GHz
stepping : 5
cpu MHz : 2266.879
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 1
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 11
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx r
dtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology tsc_reliable nonstop_tsc pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdc
m dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
bogomips : 4533.75
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
thanks in advance for any help!
-jeff