linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] sched: smart wake-affine

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Date:	Fri, 05 Jul 2013 06:08:38 +0200
From:	Mike Galbraith <efault@....de>
To:	Michael Wang <wangyun@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>, Alex Shi <alex.shi@...el.com>,
	Namhyung Kim <namhyung@...nel.org>,
	Paul Turner <pjt@...gle.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"Nikunj A. Dadhania" <nikunj@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Ram Pai <linuxram@...ibm.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] sched: smart wake-affine

On Fri, 2013-07-05 at 10:47 +0800, Michael Wang wrote: 
> On 07/04/2013 06:33 PM, Mike Galbraith wrote:
> [snip]
> >> Well, seems like we still have many follow-up research works after fix
> >> the issue ;-)
> > 
> > Yeah.  Like how to how to exterminate the plus sign, they munch cache
> > lines, and have a general tendency to negatively impact benchmarks.
> > 
> > Q6600 box, hackbench -l 1000
> >                                                                        avg
> > 3.10.0-regress     2.293     2.297     2.313     2.291     2.295     2.297     1.000
> > 3.10.0-regressx    2.560     2.524     2.427     2.599     2.602     2.542     1.106
> 
> Wow, I used to think such issue is very hard to be tracked by
> benchmarks, is this regression stable?

Yeah, seems to be.  I was curious as to why you saw an improvement to
hackbench, didn't seem there should be any, so though I'd try it on my
little box on the way to a long weekend.  The unexpected happened.

> > pahole said...
> > 
> > marge:/usr/local/src/kernel/linux-3.x.git # tail virgin
> >         long unsigned int          timer_slack_ns;       /*  1512     8 */
> >         long unsigned int          default_timer_slack_ns; /*  1520     8 */
> >         atomic_t                   ptrace_bp_refcnt;     /*  1528     4 */
> > 
> >         /* size: 1536, cachelines: 24, members: 125 */
> >         /* sum members: 1509, holes: 6, sum holes: 23 */
> >         /* bit holes: 1, sum bit holes: 26 bits */
> >         /* padding: 4 */
> >         /* paddings: 1, sum paddings: 4 */
> > };
> > 
> > marge:/usr/local/src/kernel/linux-3.x.git # tail michael
> >         long unsigned int          default_timer_slack_ns; /*  1552     8 */
> >         atomic_t                   ptrace_bp_refcnt;     /*  1560     4 */
> > 
> >         /* size: 1568, cachelines: 25, members: 128 */
> >         /* sum members: 1533, holes: 8, sum holes: 31 */
> >         /* bit holes: 1, sum bit holes: 26 bits */
> >         /* padding: 4 */
> >         /* paddings: 1, sum paddings: 4 */
> >         /* last cacheline: 32 bytes */
> > };
> > 
> > ..but plugging holes, didn't help, moving this/that around neither, nor
> > did letting pahole go wild to get the line back.  It's plus signs I tell
> > ya, the evil things must die ;-)
> 
> Hmm...so the new members kicked some tail members to a new line...or may
> be totally different when compiler take part in...
> 
> It's really hard to estimate the influence, especially when the
> task_struct is still keep changing...

Yeah, could be memory layout crud that disappears with the next
pull/build.  Wouldn't be the first time.

-Mike

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