Looking for help with high volume MySQL

[John Klos <john%ziaspace.com@localhost>]

Hi, all,

I'm looking for help with setting up NetBSD machines in a MySQL cluster. I 
have lots of questions, such as:

Is SMP efficient enough with NetBSD that a single 4, 6, or 8 processor 
system would be as capable or perhaps more capable than, say, 2, 3, or 4 
separate dual processor systems?

Why, on an amd64 system with 4 gigs of memory and MySQL ulimited as such:

        ulimit -n 4096
        ulimit -d 1572864
        ulimit -n 600
        ulimit -s 32768

do I sometimes get out of memory errors from MySQL? The total size of 
MySQL seems to grow to about 1 gig, but never any larger, and I've had to 
lower memory usage in my.cnf.

Why is my.cnf in /usr/local/ and not in /usr/local/etc/?

Does anyone have recommendations for setting up an arbitrary number of 
replication slaves easily? Experience and suggestions? What's the best way 
to benchmark two machines against each other? AMD or Intel?

Any suggestions or help would be most welcome.

Thanks,
John Klos
--
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who
make empty prophecies.  The danger already exists that mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine
man in the bonds of Hell.
                -- St. Augustine