Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751093AbWEIB5p (ORCPT ); Mon, 8 May 2006 21:57:45 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751344AbWEIB5p (ORCPT ); Mon, 8 May 2006 21:57:45 -0400 Received: from smtp105.mail.mud.yahoo.com ([209.191.85.215]:57204 "HELO smtp105.mail.mud.yahoo.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1751093AbWEIB5o (ORCPT ); Mon, 8 May 2006 21:57:44 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com.au; h=Received:Message-ID:Date:From:User-Agent:X-Accept-Language:MIME-Version:To:CC:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=vTvl9GW8pDMYaR2tmr2XebAVgzImqYa7nAkuXJgavITqE550L1MZlqA+YeR1B/0EFKLoHf5QknDFfRokiul4f3J97RmxA/x4pE1vQsuEIRPGoxj7We9weMNpCOGasfNJ/Mi2BZgTNaL5i97Toge44IvZDLqPz4ARadT+p3PgArE= ; Message-ID: <445FF714.4050803@yahoo.com.au> Date: Tue, 09 May 2006 11:57:40 +1000 From: Nick Piggin User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050927 Debian/1.7.8-1sarge3 X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Arjan van de Ven CC: Erik Mouw , "Martin J. Bligh" , Andrew Morton , Jason Schoonover , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: High load average on disk I/O on 2.6.17-rc3 References: <200605051010.19725.jasons@pioneer-pra.com> <20060507095039.089ad37c.akpm@osdl.org> <445F548A.703@mbligh.org> <1147100149.2888.37.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <20060508152255.GF1875@harddisk-recovery.com> <1147102290.2888.41.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> In-Reply-To: <1147102290.2888.41.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 826 Lines: 24 Arjan van de Ven wrote: >>... except that any kernel < 2.6 didn't account tasks waiting for disk >>IO. >> > >they did. It was "D" state, which counted into load average. > Perhaps kernel threads in D state should not contribute toward load avg. Userspace does not care whether there are 2 or 20 pdflush threads waiting for IO. However, when the network/disks can no longer keep up, userspace processes will end up going to sleep in writeback or reclaim -- *that* is when we start feeling the load. -- Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com - 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/