Red Hat has made its first update to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, with support for dual-core processors from AMD and Intel.
The capability will appear in both RHEL 3 Update 5 and RHEL 4 Update 1. The company began testing support for the processors last week, telling customers on Friday that the updates beta version would target AMD and Intel processors.
“In an effort to maximize the performance of these dual-core CPUs, Red Hat is working closely with AMD and Intel to ensure that Red Hat Enterprise Linux works optimally with the latest system BIOS,” said Red Hat spokesman Nick Carr.
Both AMD and Intel have been tinkering with their dual-core x86 server processors, with AMDs due to arrive this month and Intels slated for later this year.
Having support for dual-core processors with RHEL will increase performance and reduce memory requirements, Intel has said, as well as mesh well with Intels planned Montecito version of Itanium. RHEL also has an updated IA32 Execution Layer, letting Intels Itanium 2 processor run software designed for x86 chips.
With the update, the combination of RHEL and dual-core processors allows the scheduler to accurately detect the exact processor configuration. This boosts the ability to schedule processes that take maximum advantage of the capabilities of dual-core processes, Carr noted.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a platform for open-source computing that is sold by subscription and is offered in both server and client options. The company has been attempting to make significant changes to its offerings with each new iteration, with version 4 making use of the 2.6 kernel for the first time.
With its collaboration with AMD and Intel, Red Hat could make a larger impact in the enterprise by keeping up with the latest systems, Carr said: “Dual-core processors become significantly more sophisticated with this support, resulting in improved system and scheduling performance.”
AMD anticipates continued work with Red Hat as dual-core environments become more widespread. “Many of our customers request Red Hat specifically,” said Margaret Lewis, an AMD software strategist. “During the next steps of dual-core processing, well be working with vendors like Red Hat to introduce more optimizations.”