Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S964922AbVLUW7N (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Dec 2005 17:59:13 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S964930AbVLUW7N (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Dec 2005 17:59:13 -0500 Received: from omta04sl.mx.bigpond.com ([144.140.93.156]:10308 "EHLO omta04sl.mx.bigpond.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S964922AbVLUW7M (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Dec 2005 17:59:12 -0500 Message-ID: <43A9DE3E.1080809@bigpond.net.au> Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 09:59:10 +1100 From: Peter Williams User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7-1.1.fc4 (X11/20050929) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Kyle Moffett CC: Horst von Brand , Trond Myklebust , Ingo Molnar , Con Kolivas , Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: [PATCH] sched: Fix adverse effects of NFS client on interactive response References: <200512211610.jBLGAW05003489@laptop11.inf.utfsm.cl> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Authentication-Info: Submitted using SMTP AUTH PLAIN at omta04sl.mx.bigpond.com from [147.10.133.38] using ID pwil3058@bigpond.net.au at Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:59:10 +0000 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2747 Lines: 65 Kyle Moffett wrote: > On Dec 21, 2005, at 11:10, Horst von Brand wrote: > >> Kyle Moffett wrote: >> >>> On Dec 21, 2005, at 08:21, Trond Myklebust wrote: >>> >>>> ...and if you stick in a faster server?... >>>> There is _NO_ fundamental difference between NFS and a local >>>> filesystem that warrants marking one as "interactive" and the other >>>> as "noninteractive". What you are basically saying is that all I/O >>>> should be marked as TASK_NONINTERACTIVE. >>> >>> >>> Uhh, what part of disk/NFS/filesystem access is "interactive"? >>> Which of those sleeps directly involve responding to user- interface >>> events? >> >> >> And if it is a user waiting for the data to display? Can't >> distinguish that so easily from the compiler waiting for something to >> do... > > > No, but in that case the program probably _already_ has some > interactivity bonus just from user interaction. And if it doesn't then it is (by definition) not interactive. :-) As you imply, this change is targetting those tasks whose ONLY interruptible sleeps are due to NFS use. > On the other hand, UI > programming guidelines say that any task which might take more than a > half-second or so should not be run in the event loop, but in a > separate thread (either a drawing thread or similar). In that case, > your event loop thread is the one with the interactivity bonus, and the > others are just data processing threads (like the compile you have > running in the background or the webserver responding to HTTP > requests), that the user would need to manually arbitrate between with > nice levels. > > The whole point of the interactivity bonus was that processes that > follow the cycle => than-time-quantum> => would get a boost; things > like dragging a window or handling mouse or keyboard events should > happen within a small number of milliseconds, whereas background tasks > really _don't_ care if they are delayed running their time quantum by > 400ms, as long as they get their full quantum during each cycle. Exactly. It's all about latency and doesn't really effect the allocation of CPU resources according to niceness as that is handled via differential time slice allocations. Peter -- Peter Williams pwil3058@bigpond.net.au "Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious." -- Ambrose Bierce - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/