Dual 8500 — #8 | MacTrove

Post #8 by QuadSix50

Source Forum	68kMLA
Category	PowerPC
Post Date	Mon, 11 May 2009 - 15:56
Original URL	https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/dual-8500.17342/

Post

PPC Linux or BSD would be fully dual processor aware.

Click to expand...

Are you sure? The last time I ran a Linux (YDL 3) on a dual 604e Mac, the second CPU was not active. Mac OS is required to get that second CPU active. This is in contrast to dual G4 processors which use a different architecture that Linux can enable.

A while back, Danamania said the same thing - that Debian, out of the box, works on dual 604e CPUs. Which seems strange because I thought that out-of-the-box support for PCI-class Macs was pretty much non-existant in ANY Linux distro. YDL, which is built specifically for PowerPC, doesn't even support those Macs anymore - since YDL 3, you have to figure out how to install it yourself.

Peace,

Drew

I can only imagine that the kernel used was not SMP-aware. Most of the kernels available now have a kernel compiled for SMP support for multi-CPU and multi-core systems. I used to use YDL, but compared to today's PowerPC ports of GNU/Linux, YDL is waaaaaaay behind in terms of features IMO.