Re: [RFC][PATCH] new timeofday core subsystem (v.A0)

[Dominik Brodowski]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 01:04:04AM -0700, George Anzinger wrote:
> >One could do this but we want to have a tickless system. The tick is only
> >necessary if the time needs to be adjusted.
> 
> I really think a tickless system, for other than UML systems, is a loosing 
> thing.  The accounting overhead on context switch (which increases as the 
> number of switchs per second) will cause more overhead than a periodic 
> accounting tick once a respectable load appears.
			 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

On a largely idle system (like notebooks on battery power in typical use)
the accounting overhead will be less a problem. However, the CPU being 
woken up each millisecond will cause an increased battery usage. So if 
the load is less than a certain threshold, tickless systems do make much 
sense.

	Dominik
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