RE: [patch] scheduler cache affinity improvement for 2.4 kernels

[Ingo Molnar]

On Thu, 8 Nov 2001, M. Edward Borasky wrote:

> I can think of some circumstances where one would want the *opposite*
> of this patch. Consider a "time-sharing" system running both
> CPU-intensive "batch" tasks and "interactive" tasks. There is going to
> be a tradeoff between efficiency / throughput of the batch tasks and
> the response times of interactive ones. [...]

this mechanizm is already part of the scheduler and is not affected by my
patch. Interactive tasks get their '->counter' value increased gradually
via the recalculate code in the scheduler, which after some time gives
them effective priority above that of CPU-intensive processes.

To see this mechanizm working, just boot into the stock kernel or try a
kernel with the patch applied, start a few CPU-intensive processes, eg.
a couple of subshells doing an infinite loop:

	while N=1; do N=1; done &
	while N=1; do N=1; done &
	while N=1; do N=1; done &
	while N=1; do N=1; done &

and see how the interactive shell is still responding instantaneously in
such a mixed workload, despite having the same static priority as the
subshells.

	Ingo