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Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2017 09:19:09 +0200 (CEST)
From: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
To: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
cc: "Li, Aubrey" <aubrey.li@linux.intel.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
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        daniel.lezcano@linaro.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH v1 00/11] Create fast idle path for short idle
 periods
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On Mon, 17 Jul 2017, Andi Kleen wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 08:43:53AM +0200, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> > On Mon, 17 Jul 2017, Andi Kleen wrote:
> > 
> > > > We need a tradeoff here IMHO. I'll check Daniel's work to understand how/if
> > > > it's better than menu governor.
> > > 
> > > I still would like to see how the fast path without the C1 heuristic works.
> > > 
> > > Fast pathing is a different concept from a better predictor. IMHO we need
> > > both, but the first is likely lower hanging fruit.
> > 
> > Hacking something on the side is always the lower hanging fruit as it
> > avoids solving the hard problems. As Peter said already, that's not going
> > to happen unless there is a real technical reason why the general path
> > cannot be fixed. So far there is no proof for that.
> 
> You didn't look at Aubrey's data?
> 
> There are some unavoidable slow operations in the current path -- e.g.
> reprograming the timer for NOHZ. But we don't need that for really 
> short idle periods, because as you pointed out they never get woken
> up by the tick.
> 
> Similar for other things like RCU.
> 
> I don't see how you can avoid that other than without a fast path mechanism.

You can very well avoid it by taking the irq timings or whatever other
information into account for the NOHZ decision.

Thanks,

	tglx