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RE: [TCLUG:1011] distributed.net - rc5des versions




> So using RedHat 5.1 on a Pentium, which of the files do I download? I see
> three files that could be candidates. They all say Linux:
>
> x86 mt
> x86 non-mt
> aout x86 non-mt
>
> What's the diff?

	"mt" means "multi-threaded".  If you have a multi-processor machine, this
is the one you *must* get.  I use it on my single-CPU machines too, and
haven't seen any significant difference between it and the non-multithreaded
version.  On the other hand, I haven't looked too closely.  The main
difference is that the mt version spawns child processes to help it with key
crunching, and the non-mt versions do everything with just one process.
	I'm sure that somebody else can explain better than I can the difference
between the "a.out" version and the others, but my understanding is that the
binary for this one is compiled on an older version of C, and is mainly for
compatibility with older UNIX and Linux kernels.  Again, I don't know if
there's a significant speed difference, because I can't access the "client
speeds" pages right now.

	So, I'd recommend the x86 mt version.  My slowest machine here, a P166, (I
think), runs at a pretty consistent 168 kkeys/sec running that version (my
fastest, a brand-new PII-433 with nothing much else to do right now, clocks
about 987).