Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932093AbXEYVxV (ORCPT ); Fri, 25 May 2007 17:53:21 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752073AbXEYVxN (ORCPT ); Fri, 25 May 2007 17:53:13 -0400 Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([207.189.120.13]:45905 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753548AbXEYVxN convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Fri, 25 May 2007 17:53:13 -0400 Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 14:52:54 -0700 From: Andrew Morton To: =?ISO-8859-1?B?IkouQS4gTWFnYWxs824i?= Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: idle=poll burns my box [was Re: 2.6.22-rc2-mm1] Message-Id: <20070525145254.febcc9eb.akpm@linux-foundation.org> In-Reply-To: <20070525232025.416b32d7@werewolf-wl> References: <20070523004233.5ae5f6fd.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20070525232025.416b32d7@werewolf-wl> X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.1 (GTK+ 2.8.17; x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 687 Lines: 14 On Fri, 25 May 2007 23:20:25 +0200 "J.A. Magall?n" wrote: > Is idle=poll a quick and dirty way to burn your box in flames ? yep ;) It makes the CPU(s) busy-wait when they have nothing else to do. It was originally added as a thing to maybe save a few cycles of latency in responding to interrupts. It's now useful as a trick to prevent oprofile from producing confusing numbers. I don't think it has any other uses. - 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/