BFS vs. mainline scheduler benchmarks and measurements

Posted Sep 7, 2009 12:53 UTC (Mon) by mingo (subscriber, #31122)
In reply to: BFS vs. mainline scheduler benchmarks and measurements by kragil
Parent article: BFS vs. mainline scheduler benchmarks and measurements

at the moment the Linux desktop freezes and skips way too often.

We take such problems seriously - please post to lkml about this, with the scheduler maintainers (Peter Zijstra and me) Cc:-ed.

We have many good tools that can get to the bottom to such skipping, if there are people willing to report problems and willing to trace latencies and test patches.

Both Peter Zijstra and me have and test on low-spec systems as well. I've got a 833 MHz Pentium-3 laptop that i (auto-)reboot new kernels into about 10 times every day with new -tip kernels. Peter has a 1.2 GHz Pentium-mobile laptop for interactivity testing. My daily desktop is a dual-core box - not some big honking server machine.

But ... we can only fix the scheduler if you help out too and report your interactivity problems on lkml.

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BFS vs. mainline scheduler benchmarks and measurements

Posted Sep 7, 2009 13:20 UTC (Mon) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link] (3 responses)

Are you in the process of testing BFS on your 'low end' PIII laptop?

How many people report bugs of stuttering, lockups and hangs anyway? I'd forgive you for thinking it's not a problem because the CFS and Deadline schedulers have been good for me and my home-use workload.

BFS vs. mainline scheduler benchmarks and measurements

Posted Sep 7, 2009 14:36 UTC (Mon) by mingo (subscriber, #31122) [Link] (2 responses)

Are you in the process of testing BFS on your 'low end' PIII laptop?

Not likely - it took 8+ hours to do the quad core tests and a single kernel build iteration takes 1-2 hours on this box.

But that box is perfect for audio skipping problems. Right now it can play an mp3 stutter-free while a make -j3 job is running on it. That's roughly in line with what i'd expect from that box.

We have on the order of one such bugreport per kernel cycle (3 months). They generally get fixed if they are reported and if the reporter reacts to feedback and further testing requests.

BFS vs. mainline scheduler benchmarks and measurements

Posted Sep 7, 2009 18:57 UTC (Mon) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Be sure to throw PulseAudio in there. :)

It'll end up being required desktop component since it's the only system developed so far that can handle hotplugging audio devices _and_ network audio in effective manner. This means on the fly audio configuration changes, which means that USB headsets for VoIP and gaming, bluetooth audio devices, and usb docking stations (etc etc) which are now increasingly common cannot be handled in a sane manner without PA's ability to do on the fly reconfiguration.

Then you'll need to do some graphical benchmarks. Maybe some of those things from Mesa or whatever. Their little things. Just stuff that runs for a few seconds at a time. Those phoronix folks have their benchmark suite and maybe that would be usefull for you guys.

The point for interactivity, as I see it, is adapting to changing workloads. Playing a mp3 + doing a kernel compile is fairly static and the system has time to adapt to it, and whatnot. The system should have a "peaky" workload with occasional high loads and whatnot.

Not that I experienced many problems with the modern kernel compiled with preemption enabled. At least nothing that stands out in my mind right now.

Measuring on down-to-earth hardware

Posted Sep 7, 2009 22:30 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

Not likely - it took 8+ hours to do the quad core tests and a single kernel build iteration takes 1-2 hours on this box.

Pity. It would be interesting to run your benchmarks on a PIII, even if it takes 5 days; or tune them to last less. Just about any current netbook would do too. Any takers?

As a socratic exercise: just what would it prove if BFS performed better than CFS? And then, what would we learn if the reverse happened and CFS bested BFS?

BFS vs. mainline scheduler benchmarks and measurements

Posted Sep 9, 2009 14:33 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

I think the idea of 'normal users' going to LKML with their problems is unworkable. However, I am willing to give it a try with my next interactivity stall. I expect to give up rapidly if faced with derision or brush-off.