On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 at 08:25:37AM -0800, Jason R Thorpe wrote:
	> Actually, that's an implementation matter ... We can make the reaper
	> thread very low priority such that it only runs when the idle loop
	> would be run (this would require a slight change to the run queues,
	> I think, so that other normal low priority processes wouldn't have
	> to compete for round-robin slots with the idle-priority threads).

	Couldn't the job be done in the idle loop, just as we zero free pages ?

The current scheduling scheme is a bit of a problem.  Scheduling
is only done inside the idle loop, and is suspended while the
processor goes out to execute these housekeeping tasks which
could take quite a while to complete.  

We really should re-schedule on interrupt return so we can 
have interruptible kernel threads to handle this.  The changes
needed for fine grained SMP will allow interruption in the 
kernel.  We should take advantage of that to lower latencies.
This will also be a great benefit in the embedded space.

Eduardo