kernel designations question

[Dave Jones]

On Sat, Dec 03, 2005 at 11:39:04PM -0800, Tony Foster wrote:
 > 
 > I am fairly new to Linux but I was fairly good with unix 10 years ago. 
 > I am assuming that the kernel with the SMP tag is for HW with multiple
 > processors?  

correct.

 > If so then the question is will that SMP kernel be well behaved on a 
 > Single processor hardware?

Mostly.   There are some systems (especially laptops) that will lock up
very early on in boot.  Of those that do boot successfully, some CPUs
pay more of a cost than others when it comes to running spinlocks and
similar locked operations.

		Dave