Synergy Microsystems has announced its support for Linux with symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) on all of its PowerPC-based multiprocessor boards. The company claims that this represents the first Linux PowerPC release that supports SMP on VME and CompactPCI based CPU boards.

The new Synergy Linux SMP implementation supports both PowerPC 750 (G3) and G4 processors with the AltiVec vector processing unit. The release also supports the Synergy Scientific Subroutine Library (SSSL) for DSP and array processing, with AltiVec support. Linux SMP for Synergy boards is shipping now. The release includes Yellow Dog Linux Champion Server 1.2 (available here) and the Linux kernel with the SMP enhancements developed by Synergy.

Tom Powell, Synergy CEO, said “we're quite pleased to be able to offer this functionality to application developers. Users can now get the full benefit of parallel processing under the Linux operating system, combined with the DSP capabilities of the G4 processor with AltiVec. With the Synergy Scientific Subroutine Library, users can build a very powerful, multiprocessing DSP / array processing solution, at a very reasonable cost.”

Symmetric Multiprocessing lets multiple processors work in parallel, using a single copy of the operating system, shared memory, and shared I/O resources. The operating system dynamically balances the application processing load among all the processors on a single board computer. SMP can significantly boost performance in scaleable, multithreaded applications.

Linux SMP runs on all of Synergy's multiprocessor PowerPC G3/G4 boards, including the dual-CPU VGM5 and quad-CPU VSS4 for VME, and the dual-CPU KGM5 for CompactPCI. The OS is fully compatible with the Synergy Scientific Subroutine Library (SSSL). The library provides several hundred functions including vector and matrix support, image and signal processing, fast Fourier transforms (FFTs), scalar operations and more; with single- and double-precision accuracy (depending on the function). SSSL is hand-optimized for optimum performance on Synergy boards.

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.