Re: Is the kernel for sun4m SMP capable ?

[Samuel Furtaw <samfurtaw%fastmail.com@localhost>]

Sure is - just not the one that ships with the default install. You’ll either need to drop in a pre-built GENERIC.MP kernel, or compile the kernel with the multiprocessor support enabled:
—> https://www.netbsd.org/ports/sparc/faq.html#smp-cpus

I will say - on the SS20 it makes quite a performance difference.

—
Samuel Furtaw

> On Jan 20, 2026, at 8:04 PM, Dennis Clarke <dclarke%blastwave.org@localhost> wrote:
> 
> 
> On a dual CPU old Sun SPARCStation 20 it seems to be only using one CPU.
> 
> If any one process is running at 100% CPU utilization then the entire
> machine reports 0% idle. However there are two CPUs in there.
> 
> 
> -- 
> --
> Dennis Clarke
> RISC-V/SPARC/PPC/ARM/CISC
> UNIX and Linux spoken
>