From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 24 16:22:34 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 259BB16A419 for ; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:22:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from mail.potentialtech.com (internet.potentialtech.com [66.167.251.6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 09ADF13C4B2 for ; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:22:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from vanquish.pitbpa0.priv.collaborativefusion.com (pr40.pitbpa0.pub.collaborativefusion.com [206.210.89.202]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.potentialtech.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31E40EBC78; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:22:33 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:22:16 -0400 From: Bill Moran To: "Jim Stapleton" Message-Id: <20070924122216.e1912108.wmoran@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <80f4f2b20709240723m121aad88ofaf728f384dd6c20@mail.gmail.com> References: <80f4f2b20709240723m121aad88ofaf728f384dd6c20@mail.gmail.com> X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.4 (GTK+ 2.10.14; i386-portbld-freebsd6.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Questions on the scheduler X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:22:34 -0000 In response to "Jim Stapleton" : > I've heard a lot of winging about the FreeBSD scheduler from Linux > people, and even saw that is the reason for one fork off of FreeBSD. > > In my experience, I've gotten better performance out of FreeBSD on > single or multi-CPU systems than I have out of Linux or Windows (or > really any other system). > > Are these complains I hear of outdated, am I hallucinationg, or is > there another answer? Although this is probably a better question for > -current, what is the state of the scheduler(s), and what would be > some good reading on the subject (specifically to BSD, and not just > schedulers in general)? Any discussion regarding such things is obsolete as quickly as it's written. Every OS I know if is constantly working to improve such things. Getting reliable, high-performance scheduling on modern SMP hardware is tough, but they all keep improving. Without a specific problem referencing a specific version, it's just idle chatter and useless for anything other than exercising your jaw between beers. If you have a specific performance problem, I highly recommend you file a PR with plenty of details. This is what happened with both MySQL and PostgreSQL and the result is that FreeBSD 7's ability to run those applications has improved dramatically. I doubt you're hallucinating, but without specifics, it's difficult to say what you're hearing. Lots of people think they can do benchmarking, but few (in my experience) are capable of legitimately doing a non-biased comparison that can really be trusted. I don't know where to point you for reading materials other than the code itself, and that's not something that's easily digested. As I said, writing high-quality schedulers is black magic, and the code reads that way. -- Bill Moran http://www.potentialtech.com