Good first impressions

[Michael Kearey]

Andy Wallace wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I recently bought a 2.8GHz P4 (with hyperthreading), 1GB RAM, 160
> GB HDD, with CD-RW/DVD, DVD+RW writer, MiniDisc reader, Digital
> camera card reader, another slot which I'm not sure what it does??
> - even has a floppy disk drive! Graphics card is ATI Radeon 9200
> 128MB. I also got a HP PSC 1350 combo Printer/Scanner/Copier (USB).
> 
> 
> Needless to say, it came with Win XP Home, so the first thing I did
> was format the hard disk :)
> 
> SuSE 9.0 - Didn't recognize the graphics card, didn't like the CPU,
>  installed packages from 1st CD but then froze on reboot (still
> halfway through install). Only kernel choice was SMP, which might
> have caused the problem. Overwrote MBR making system unbootable.
> 
> Debian Woody (from magazine cover DVD) - installer froze on boot :(
> 
> 
> Gentoo 1.4 (from magazine cover DVD) - installer froze on boot :(
> 
> RH9 - Installed OK, but had to fake the ATI card as a 9100 in 
> XF86Config, defaults to SMP kernel which hangs on boot, UP kernel
> works fine. Detected printer OK but nothing happened when I tried
> to print, never detected scanner despite setting up with hpoj.
> 
> Fedora - detected all hardware OK, everything worked without
> tweaking! Boots successfully from SMP kernel - if anyone's
> wondering, these new hyperthreading CPUs appear as 2 CPUs to the
> Linux kernel, but it's really a single CPU. Hope they get that
> sorted out in 2.6.


There is nothing to sort out. The Hyperthreading CPU presents *itself*
to the kernel as 2 CPU's. It is correct for the kernel to present to
you 2 CPU's. 2.6 kernel would be broken if it did not do the same thing..

Cheers,
Michael