[ubuntu-uk] Do I have a quad-core netbook (surely not?!)

[Alan Pope]

On 28 June 2011 13:21, Ross Mounce <ross.mounce at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear list,
> I recently bought a fairly new Samsung N150 Plus netbook off a friend.
> Dumped the windows crippleware 'Starter' OS, and installed Ubuntu 64-bit
> 11.04
> which works very nicely/speedily.
> Rather curiously the GUI system monitor shows it as having 4 CPUs (?)

> A) Why does it show as 4 processors? Are these all real?

1 x Dual Core x Hyper Threading = 4.

2 cores each hyperthreaded.

> Have I somehow 'unlocked' another couple *hopes*?

No.

> B) If it's just 4 threads, can I optimally run 4
> separate instances of a 32-bit program one each on each thread/core without
> losing overall efficiency? (The program I have in mind is a bit
> technical/obscure, and no, it doesn't have a 64-bit version)
>

You could run 4 instances of an application. Whether this is more
efficient / better than one/two/three copies depends on a few other
factors. Try it and see.

Al.