Why does it show BogoMips instead of MHz in the kernel boot message?
• (ADB) On some processor architectures it is very difficult to find out the clock speed of the processor, and since the kernel does not depend on determining the MHz rating of a processor to operate correctly, MHz simply do not get calculated at boot time. OTOH, BogoMips get calculated because the kernel bases itself on BogoMips data to implement small time delays (busy loops) needed by various drivers in different circumstances. Note that neither BogoMips nor MHz measure processor performance in any way. See the BogoMips HOWTO by Wim van Dorst for an accurate description of BogoMips. Also take a look at the Linux Benchmarking HOWTO (shameless plug) if you want some basic information on Linux performance measurements. Sometimes your BogoMips reading will vary by as much as 30%, from one kernel to another. This is due to changes in the alignment of the BogoMips calibration loop, which interacts with cache behavior. Richard B. Johnson has recently proposed a small patch that takes care
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