From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 16 19:14:24 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E025A16A418 for ; Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:14:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from LoN_Kamikaze@gmx.de) Received: from mail.gmx.net (mail.gmx.net [213.165.64.20]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4138A13C455 for ; Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:14:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from LoN_Kamikaze@gmx.de) Received: (qmail invoked by alias); 16 Oct 2007 19:14:22 -0000 Received: from nat-wh-1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (EHLO mobileKamikaze.norad) [129.13.72.169] by mail.gmx.net (mp044) with SMTP; 16 Oct 2007 21:14:22 +0200 X-Authenticated: #5465401 X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX18xCcZ+RQUx/S7oYh2xZObxvIvHFf+M9ojgYBBHHZ cKk99ctyfmv+Ch Message-ID: <47150D87.3070804@gmx.de> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:14:15 +0200 From: "[LoN]Kamikaze" User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (X11/20071015) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Y-GMX-Trusted: 0 Cc: Subject: SCHED_4BSD in RELENG_7 disturbs workflow X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:14:25 -0000 I know that RELENG_7 is not considered very near-release, but I thought I'd give my 2ยข in the hope that I might have a little influence on the scheduler development to my benefit. The switch from RELENG_6 to RELENG_7 went relatively smooth and apart from ipw causing panics. However there is one thing that's disturbing and this is the scheduler. I only have single core machines, so whatever I say only applies to those. If you think single-core machines are no longer important, feel free to ignore this. In deed, just ignore me however much you like. >From my perspective scheduling on RELENG_6 was way better. Even on a full workload like a portupgrade the focused application (both in X and on the console) always received enough cycles to run smoothly and applications that ran in background like audio players also kept on running fine. Quite the contrary on RELENG_7. During a portupgrade or even worse 'pkgdb -L' (recovering lost dependencies) audio players (both graphical and mplayer) scatter, either because they don't get the hard-disk or CPU-cycles (which one, I don't know) and the focused application also often hangs. It just looks like occasionally (under load) everything freezes for a second and then goes on relatively normal. I've got the impression that things compile a little faster (that might be my imagination, though), but I'd rather have a smooth working experience. This is just my view of the situation and I suppose it is only one of many. I bid you be merciful with us single-core people, who cannot afford a slick multi-core machine, because we worry how to pay for our food at the end of the month.