These instructions are deliberately very basic. If you want something clever, go read the real docs ;-) Please don't add more stuff, but feel free to correct my mistakes ;-) (mbligh@aracnet.com) Thanks to John Levon, Dave Hansen, et al. for help writing this. <test> is the thing you're trying to measure. Make sure you have the correct System.map / vmlinux referenced! It is probably easiest to use "make install" for linux and hack /sbin/installkernel to copy vmlinux to /boot, in addition to vmlinuz, config, System.map, which are usually installed by default. Readprofile ----------- A recent readprofile command is needed for 2.6, such as found in util-linux 2.12a, which can be downloaded from: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/ Most distributions will ship it already. Add "profile=2" to the kernel command line. clear readprofile -r <test> dump output readprofile -m /boot/System.map > captured_profile Oprofile -------- Get the source (I use 0.8) from http://oprofile.sourceforge.net/ and add "idle=poll" to the kernel command line Configure with CONFIG_PROFILING=y and CONFIG_OPROFILE=y & reboot on new kernel ./configure --with-kernel-support make install For superior results, be sure to enable the local APIC. If opreport sees a 0Hz CPU, APIC was not on. Be aware that idle=poll may mean a performance penalty. One time setup: opcontrol --setup --vmlinux=/boot/vmlinux clear opcontrol --reset start opcontrol --start <test> stop opcontrol --stop dump output opreport > output_file To only report on the kernel, run opreport /boot/vmlinux > output_file A reset is needed to clear old statistics, which survive a reboot.