Subject: Re: scheduler nice 19 versus 'idle' behavior / static low-priority
	scheduling
From: Nathanael Hoyle <nhoyle@hoyletech.com>
To: Mike Galbraith <efault@gmx.de>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
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	 <1233296647.6071.15.camel@marge.simson.net>
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Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:52:01 -0500
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On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 07:24 +0100, Mike Galbraith wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 00:49 -0500, Nathanael Hoyle wrote:
> 
> > Recently I installed the Folding@Home client, which many of you may be
> > familiar with, intended to utilize spare CPU cycles to perform protein
> > folding simulations in order to further medical research.  It is not a
> > multi-threaded client at this point, so it simply runs four instances on
> > my system, since it has four cores.  It is configured to run at
> > nice-level 19.
> > 
> > Because it is heavily optimized, and needs little external data to
> > perform its work, it spends almost all of its time cpu-bound, with
> > little to no io-wait or blocking on network calls, etc.  I had been
> > using it for about a week with no real difficulty until I went to watch
> > another DVD and found that the video was slightly stuttery/jerky so long
> > as foldingathome was running in the background.  Once I shut it down,
> > the video playback resumed its normal smooth form.
> 
> Sounds like a problem was recently fixed.  Can you try 2.6.29-rc3 or
> 2.6.28.2?
> 
> 	-Mike
> 

I will try to do so as soon as I get the chance.  Do you have any
specific info on the problem that you believe was fixed and/or the fix
applied?

Thanks,
-Nathanael

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