On Thursday 08 July 2010, Seth Bardash wrote:
To the Linux Community at Large:
I reported to this list back in January, 2010 that the standard x86_64 kernel, when built from the src.rpm and modified for AMD K8 / K10 Extensions would not build. I reported this here and to Red Hat via Bugzilla ID number 558367. RH AS / Centos 5.3 worked fine. That was Centos 5.4 / Red Hat Enterprise AS 5 Update 4. Today we tried to optimize Red Hat Enterprise AS 5 Update 5. Same problem. At last check all kernels from 2.6.18-10 to 2.6.18-194 won't build with AMD specific optimizations.
Do you have any data to back up this position? (that optimizing the kernel for a specific processor is of any significant real world use)
...
Now we are looking at the AMD G34 CPU's and are building some demo units. I think its time to benchmark these systems with the working - non optimized Red Hat / Centos Linux versus the optimized Opensuse / SLES Linux for standard server functions and publish them.
Too many (other) variables change you'd not be able to say that it had to do with the processor specific optimization of the kernel.
For this you'd need to benchmark the same dist but with optimized and non-optimized kernel.
Also, to impress me, the benchmark in question would have to be a relevant high level benchmark, not kernel micro benchmarks.
/Peter