linux-kernel - Re: [Announce] [patch] Modular Scheduler Core and Completely Fair Scheduler [CFS]

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Date:	Wed, 18 Apr 2007 07:00:24 +0200
From:	Nick Piggin <npiggin@...e.de>
To:	Matt Mackall <mpm@...enic.com>
Cc:	William Lee Irwin III <wli@...omorphy.com>,
	Peter Williams <pwil3058@...pond.net.au>,
	Mike Galbraith <efault@....de>,
	Con Kolivas <kernel@...ivas.org>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	ck list <ck@....kolivas.org>,
	Bill Huey <billh@...ppy.monkey.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
Subject: Re: [Announce] [patch] Modular Scheduler Core and Completely Fair Scheduler [CFS]

On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 11:38:31PM -0500, Matt Mackall wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 05:15:11AM +0200, Nick Piggin wrote:
> > 
> > I don't know why this would be a useful feature (of course I'm talking
> > about processes at the same nice level). One of the big problems with
> > the current scheduler is that it is unfair in some corner cases. It
> > works OK for most people, but when it breaks down it really hurts. At
> > least if you start with a fair scheduler, you can alter priorities
> > until it satisfies your need... with an unfair one your guess is as
> > good as mine.
> > 
> > So on what basis would you allow unfairness? On the basis that it doesn't
> > seem to harm anyone? It doesn't seem to harm testers?
> 
> On the basis that there's only anecdotal evidence thus far that
> fairness is the right approach.
> 
> It's not yet clear that a fair scheduler can do the right thing with X,
> with various kernel threads, etc. without fiddling with nice levels.
> Which makes it no longer "completely fair".

Of course I mean SCHED_OTHER tasks at the same nice level. Otherwise
I would be arguing to make nice basically a noop.


> It's also not yet clear that a scheduler can't be taught to do the
> right thing with X without fiddling with nice levels.

Being fair doesn't prevent that. Implicit unfairness is wrong though,
because it will bite people.

What's wrong with allowing X to get more than it's fair share of CPU
time by "fiddling with nice levels"? That's what they're there for.


> So I'm just not yet willing to completely rule out systems that aren't
> "completely fair".
> 
> But I think we should rule out schedulers that don't have rigid bounds on
> that unfairness. That's where the really ugly behavior lies.

Been a while since I really looked at the mainline scheduler, but I
don't think it can permanently starve something, so I don't know what
your bounded unfairness would help with.
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