Linux + 2 processors

[Alexander Volovics <awol STAT UNIMAAS NL>]

I have some questions with respect to (RH) Linux and SMP machines.
I hope some of you will be so kind as to comment.

1) How is the performance of the kernels in RH 4.2 & 5.0 on machines
   with 2 processors. Is it still 'experimentel' or is it allready
   'optimal'? (I am talking about Intel P II CPU's).
   
2) In my OS/2 days I allways heard that to really profit from SMP
   you needed heavily and cleverly multi-threaded applications.
   I know some support for multi-threading is available in the
   Linux kernels for some time and that it seems to have been
   'upgraded' with glibc.
   But, correct me if I am wrong, I don't have the impression that
   there are many multi-threaded applications around yet in the 
   Linux world. 
   Does the kernel itself use multi-threading? Is the multi-threading
   support itself full featured and complete or is it still some kind
   of partial implementation?
   
3) How does the kernel itself deal with 2 processors: how are 'tasks'
   apportioned to the 2 CPU's? How about processes, etc?
   
4) How about installation on a 2 processor machine, are there any
   problems or special tricks necessary?
   
5) How about compiling the kernel to support 2 processors: are there
   any special problems or tricks necessary or is it a straightforward
   business?
   
6) I haven't searched yet, so I am risking the obvious answers, but is
   documentation available with regard to the points? Please some hints?
   
   
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Alexander Volovics
Dept of Methodology & Statistics
Maastricht University, Maastricht, NL
email: Alexander Volovics <awol stat unimaas nl>
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