Subject: scheduler woes on MPACPI kernel
To: None <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Wolfgang S. Rupprecht <wolfgang+gnus20050117T195119@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com>
List: current-users
Date: 01/17/2005 20:07:42
For years I've been happy with nice-ing the hell out of compiles
(eg. a "nice -20" for anything that wasn't interactive) and all the
interactive tasks seemed snappy enough.  There was never a problem
with doing a full build and playing music at the same time.  Music got
first dibs at the cpu and make/cc/as/ld and cohorts got whatever was
left over.  That doesn't seem to be the case with the MPACI kernel.
mpg123 isn't getting enough cycles to fill the audio pipe even though
it is at niceness "0" and the make is at niceness "-20".  The music
pipe is starved and ends up playing ~1 second bursts with ~1 second
gap between bursts.  This seemed to have happened when I switched to
the MPACI kernel from what was a uniprocessor lightly-edited GENERIC
kernel.  (I can't switch back now to test as that would kill the
compile.)

Is this a known MP kernel property?  Is there less granularity in the
scheduler?

-wolfgang
-- 
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht                http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/
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