Description of problem: Partner reports that on a 2 CPU Xeon EM64T system besides the correct SMP kernel for hyperthreading Xeons kernel-2.4.21-20.EL.ia32e also the AMD64 SMP kernel kernel-smp-2.4.21-20.EL.x86_64 gets installed. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): anaconda-9.1.3-3 How reproducible: Install RHEL3U3 ES x86_64 on a 2 CPU Xeon EM64T machine
Are they doing a kickstart install? If so, do they have kernel-smp listed in their %packages section?
It was a kickstart install and the kernel-smp is listed in the %packages section. Removing this entry it works like a charm. Why is the AMD64 SMP kernel made as default when it gets installed?
This was one of the problem scenarios outlined when we decided to go this route for supporting EM64T in RHEL3. Unfortunately, we could *not* change the architecture of the kernel for AMD64 without breaking up2date within RHEL3. This meant that the kernel for AMD64 boxes had to remain as "x86_64". This kernel is unfortunately not compatible with EM64T boxes, though. But due to the fact that every other package in the distribution is "x86_64", we had to have the arch as compatible in the RPM sense with the "ia32e" arch. But it was deemed that the inconvenience and confusions that could result were less of a problem than the possibility of regression by integrating the changes to support EM64T in the base "x86_64" kernel.