Re: [PATCH] i386: Selectable Frequency of the Timer Interrupt [LWN.net]

From:		Linus Torvalds <torvalds-AT-osdl.org>
To:		Chris Friesen <cfriesen-AT-nortel.com>
Subject:		Re: [PATCH] i386: Selectable Frequency of the Timer Interrupt
Date:		Thu, 14 Jul 2005 10:24:52 -0700 (PDT)
Cc:		Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech-AT-suse.cz>, Arjan van de Ven <arjan-AT-infradead.org>, Lee Revell <rlrevell-AT-joe-job.com>, dean gaudet <dean-list-linux-kernel-AT-arctic.org>, Chris Wedgwood <cw-AT-f00f.org>, Andrew Morton <akpm-AT-osdl.org>, "Brown, Len" <len.brown-AT-intel.com>, dtor_core-AT-ameritech.net, david.lang-AT-digitalinsight.com, davidsen-AT-tmr.com, kernel-AT-kolivas.org, linux-kernel-AT-vger.kernel.org, mbligh-AT-mbligh.org, diegocg-AT-gmail.com, azarah-AT-nosferatu.za.org, christoph-AT-lameter.com
Archive-link:		Article, Thread

On Thu, 14 Jul 2005, Chris Friesen wrote:
> 
> But if all I really want is to sleep for 20ms, what does the additional 
> power actually buy me?

If you _only_ want to sleep for 20ms, it doesn't buy you anything.

But the sleep is often part of a bigger picture, where the 20ms might be 
part of a bigger loop that wants to run for at most a second, after which 
it will error out.

At which point it's not just about sleeping 20ms any more. 

I'm not saying that we should get rid of msleep(). I'm saying that anybody 
who thinks the jiffies-based stuff should always be rewritten as msleep() 
simply doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. At ALL.

Jiffies are here to stay, and they are here to stay for some very very 
fundamental reasons. If you hear somebody arguing for removing jiffies, 
you should piss in their general direction, and realize that they don't 
know what they are talking about.

		Linus

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