A recently merged KVM patchset included support for guest SMP, various performance improvements, and suspend/resume fixes. KVM stands for Kernel-based Virtual Machine, "a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions". In regards to the recently merged guest SMP support which will be part of the upcoming 2.6.23 kernel, Avi Kivity noted:
"Guest smp is fully operational. Kernel build on 2-way smp is 40% faster than on a up guest. Expect significant performance improvements from in-kernel apic and from further tuning."