Great. Thanks all for the explanation of hyperthreading.<div> </div><div>No idea if it actually helps or not tbh. Perhaps I should do some testing of 2x2 runs (on each physical core) vs 4 runs (each one running simultaneously).</div> <div> </div><div>I'll be very impressed if the latter is quicker in real-time.</div><div> </div><div>Many thanks,</div><div> </div><div>Ross</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> <div class="gmail_quote"> On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 3:23 PM, <<a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk-request@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk-request@lists.ubuntu.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"> Send ubuntu-uk mailing list submissions to <a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com</a> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk</a> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to <a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk-request@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk-request@lists.ubuntu.com</a> You can reach the person managing the list at <a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk-owner@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk-owner@lists.ubuntu.com</a> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of ubuntu-uk digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: upgrade from 9.10 to 11.04 (Norman Silverstone) 2. Do I have a quad-core netbook (surely not?!) (Ross Mounce) 3. Re: Do I have a quad-core netbook (surely not?!) (Alan Pope) 4. Re: Do I have a quad-core netbook (surely not?!) (J Fernyhough) 5. Re: Do I have a quad-core netbook (surely not?!) (Liam Gallear) 6. Re: Photo Tagging and Search (Jon Spriggs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:16:40 +0100 From: Norman Silverstone <<a href="mailto:norman@littletank.org">norman@littletank.org</a>> To: <a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] upgrade from 9.10 to 11.04 Message-ID: <1309263400.2324.18.camel@digital-darkroom> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" My thanks to those who replied to my original questions. I shall just assume that my hardware is not suitable and be satisfied with GNOME. Norman ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:21:58 +0100 From: Ross Mounce <<a href="mailto:ross.mounce@gmail.com">ross.mounce@gmail.com</a>> To: <a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Subject: [ubuntu-uk] Do I have a quad-core netbook (surely not?!) Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:BANLkTik6gxi3wwDmRz0pcG5-siQog3PhUg@mail.gmail.com">BANLkTik6gxi3wwDmRz0pcG5-siQog3PhUg@mail.gmail.com</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Dear list, I recently bought a fairly new Samsung N150 Plus netbook off a friend. Dumped the windows crippleware 'Starter' OS, and installed Ubuntu 64-bit 11.04 which works very nicely/speedily. Rather curiously the GUI system monitor shows it as having 4 CPUs (?) This appears to be confirmed by the CLI output (at the bottom of the msg for clarity-sake). I believe the processor is a dual core Atom N550 <a href="http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=50154" target="_blank">http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=50154</a> Two questions: A) Why does it show as 4 processors? Are these all real? Have I somehow 'unlocked' another couple *hopes*? B) If it's just 4 threads, can I optimally run 4 separate instances of a 32-bit program one each on each thread/core without losing overall efficiency? (The program I have in mind is a bit technical/obscure, and no, it doesn't have a 64-bit version) Rather curious... Ross $ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 28 model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N550 @ 1.50GHz stepping : 10 cpu MHz : 1000.000 cache size : 512 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 4 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm movbe lahf_lm dts bogomips : 2992.53 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 32 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 28 model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N550 @ 1.50GHz stepping : 10 cpu MHz : 1500.000 cache size : 512 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 4 core id : 1 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 2 initial apicid : 2 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm movbe lahf_lm dts bogomips : 2992.56 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 32 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 2 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 28 model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N550 @ 1.50GHz stepping : 10 cpu MHz : 1500.000 cache size : 512 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 4 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 1 initial apicid : 1 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm movbe lahf_lm dts bogomips : 2992.52 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 32 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 3 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 28 model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N550 @ 1.50GHz stepping : 10 cpu MHz : 1000.000 cache size : 512 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 4 core id : 1 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 3 initial apicid : 3 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm movbe lahf_lm dts bogomips : 2992.54 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 32 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <<a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-uk/attachments/20110628/7cb6db73/attachment-0001.html" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-uk/attachments/20110628/7cb6db73/attachment-0001.html</a>> ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:24:56 +0100 From: Alan Pope <<a href="mailto:alan@popey.com">alan@popey.com</a>> To: UK Ubuntu Talk <<a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com</a>> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Do I have a quad-core netbook (surely not?!) Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:BANLkTimM-c5kuiLm0PdX1Xwy77DDKw7kgw@mail.gmail.com">BANLkTimM-c5kuiLm0PdX1Xwy77DDKw7kgw@mail.gmail.com</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On 28 June 2011 13:21, Ross Mounce <<a href="mailto:ross.mounce@gmail.com">ross.mounce@gmail.com</a>> wrote: > Dear list, > I recently bought a fairly new Samsung N150 Plus netbook off a friend. > Dumped the windows crippleware 'Starter' OS, and installed Ubuntu 64-bit > 11.04 > which works very nicely/speedily. > Rather curiously the GUI system monitor shows it as having 4 CPUs (?) > A) Why does it show as 4 processors? Are these all real? 1 x Dual Core x Hyper Threading = 4. 2 cores each hyperthreaded. > Have I somehow 'unlocked' another couple *hopes*? No. > B) If it's just 4 threads, can I optimally run 4 > separate instances of a 32-bit program one each on each thread/core without > losing overall efficiency? (The program I have in mind is a bit > technical/obscure, and no, it doesn't have a 64-bit version) > You could run 4 instances of an application. Whether this is more efficient / better than one/two/three copies depends on a few other factors. Try it and see. Al. ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:26:03 +0100 From: J Fernyhough <<a href="mailto:j.fernyhough@gmail.com">j.fernyhough@gmail.com</a>> To: UK Ubuntu Talk <<a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com</a>> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Do I have a quad-core netbook (surely not?!) Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:BANLkTinoCAj7_r%2BtAVYok4gNaB_e6oX8cA@mail.gmail.com">BANLkTinoCAj7_r+tAVYok4gNaB_e6oX8cA@mail.gmail.com</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 28 June 2011 13:21, Ross Mounce <<a href="mailto:ross.mounce@gmail.com">ross.mounce@gmail.com</a>> wrote: > Dear list, <snip> > I believe the processor is a dual core Atom > N550?<a href="http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=50154" target="_blank">http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=50154</a> > Two questions: A) Why does it show as 4 processors? Are these all real? Have > I somehow 'unlocked' another couple *hopes*? It's a dual-core processor with hyper-threading, appearing to the OS as having four cores. Two are real, two are "virtual". The design came in with the P4, in essence it tries to interleave instructions so the core is used more efficiently. > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?B) If it's just 4 threads, can I optimally run 4 > separate instances of a 32-bit program one each on each thread/core without > losing overall efficiency? (The program I have in mind is a bit > technical/obscure, and no, it doesn't have a 64-bit version) You shouldn't lose any efficiency - otherwise Intel wouldn't have added it. :) It basically tricks the OS into doing basic multithreading so the program doesn't have to. Jonathon ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:59:00 +0100 From: Liam Gallear <<a href="mailto:liam.gallear@gmail.com">liam.gallear@gmail.com</a>> To: UK Ubuntu Talk <<a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com</a>> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Do I have a quad-core netbook (surely not?!) Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:02510D7C-70DF-4BA8-BB48-126F03274A18@gmail.com">02510D7C-70DF-4BA8-BB48-126F03274A18@gmail.com</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi there, In your output check out the Core ID, you have two 0's and two 1's. So you CPU has threading enabled. Thanks and Regards, Liam Gallear On 28 Jun 2011, at 13:26, J Fernyhough <<a href="mailto:j.fernyhough@gmail.com">j.fernyhough@gmail.com</a>> wrote: > On 28 June 2011 13:21, Ross Mounce <<a href="mailto:ross.mounce@gmail.com">ross.mounce@gmail.com</a>> wrote: >> Dear list, > <snip> >> I believe the processor is a dual core Atom >> N550 <a href="http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=50154" target="_blank">http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=50154</a> >> Two questions: A) Why does it show as 4 processors? Are these all real? Have >> I somehow 'unlocked' another couple *hopes*? > > It's a dual-core processor with hyper-threading, appearing to the OS > as having four cores. Two are real, two are "virtual". The design came > in with the P4, in essence it tries to interleave instructions so the > core is used more efficiently. > >> B) If it's just 4 threads, can I optimally run 4 >> separate instances of a 32-bit program one each on each thread/core without >> losing overall efficiency? (The program I have in mind is a bit >> technical/obscure, and no, it doesn't have a 64-bit version) > > You shouldn't lose any efficiency - otherwise Intel wouldn't have > added it. :) It basically tricks the OS into doing basic > multithreading so the program doesn't have to. > > Jonathon > > -- > <a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com</a> > <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk</a> > <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/" target="_blank">https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/</a> ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:22:55 +0100 From: Jon Spriggs <<a href="mailto:jon@sprig.gs">jon@sprig.gs</a>> To: UK Ubuntu Talk <<a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com</a>> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Photo Tagging and Search Message-ID: <BANLkTi=mHe1=<a href="mailto:4NvUrjzdVzZrzb3OX8UsXQ@mail.gmail.com">4NvUrjzdVzZrzb3OX8UsXQ@mail.gmail.com</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On 28 June 2011 11:27, Jon Spriggs <<a href="mailto:jon@sprig.gs">jon@sprig.gs</a>> wrote: <snip> > To make it portable, consider installing a > thin linux distribution (such as Puppy) in a VM (like QEMU) or > natively booting from the media storage device. I'm just looking into > how easy or hard that is! :) I had some time in my lunch break to take a quick look at this, and I've started to put together some notes at my blog. The first one (about getting TinyCore running in QEMU) is here: <a href="http://jon.sprig.gs/blog/2011/06/28/experimenting-with-tiny-core-linux-on-qemu/" target="_blank">http://jon.sprig.gs/blog/2011/06/28/experimenting-with-tiny-core-linux-on-qemu/</a> I'll start looking at getting TinyCore to boot automatically, and to make it work with the on the USB drive, so you could (in theory) just dump files onto the USB drive without needing to fire up QEMU until you want to do something interesting with it :) After that, I'll start looking at Horde and Gallery2 to see how easy they both are to get running on TinyCore. Aside from anything else, having it set up like this means I can just give a USB drive to my wife for her to do all the tagging she wants to do and then sync the database with my server. It might not be for a little while though - my main project at the moment is in the middle of a pretty major re-write, and I really need to knuckle down on that for a while, but this has triggered my interest :) All the best, -- Jon "The Nice Guy" Spriggs ------------------------------ -- ubuntu-uk mailing list <a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com</a> <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk</a> End of ubuntu-uk Digest, Vol 74, Issue 78 ***************************************** </blockquote></div> </div>