[CentOS] Question: How to utilize multi-core CPUs

Sun Dec 23 23:40:56 UTC 2012
fred smith <fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us>

On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 05:22:52PM -0600, Mike Watson wrote:
> I've installed CentOS 6.3 on a quad-four box.  The model only indicated
> dual core but CentOS is telling me there are four.  This is the first
> multi-core Linux installation I've had. What is the best way to utilize
> the multi-core CPUs? I'd like to distribute the load but I'm unsure how
> to do that.

Is it possible the motherboard is one of those that automatically unlocks
hidden cores? sometimes, or so one hears, CPU vendors will lock some of
the cores on a chip and sell it as having fewer cores than it actually
has. The reasons usually given are either that some of the cores don't
pass tests but the others do, or sometimes they need to fill gaps in
production of the lower-end parts. some motherboards have technology
(read: kludges) for discovering and unlocking such hidden cores. YMMV.

As for how to utilize it, the LInux scheduler will assign programs to
the cores as it sees fit. If the app you want to run is multi-threaded,
its threads will be distributed across multiple cores if the scheduler
thinks there are CPU cycles going to waste on some cores.

I've heard that it is posible to tie a process to a specific core,
but I have no idea how one does it in real life.

Fred

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