Re: [PATCH (updated)] timer: Run calc_load halfway through each round_jiffiessecond

From: Simon Arlott
Date: Thu Mar 01 2007 - 17:53:04 EST


Whenever jiffies is started at a multiple of 5*HZ or wraps, calc_load is run exactly on the second which is when tasks using round_jiffies will be scheduled to run. This has a bad effect on the load average, making it tend towards 1.00 if a task happens to run every time the load is being calculated.

This changes calc_load so that it updates load half a second after any tasks scheduled using round_jiffies.

Signed-off-by: Simon Arlott <simon@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
Without this change or an appropriate equivalent, my change to cxacru causes the load to stay around 1.00 even when mostly idle since it now runs every second using round_jiffies:
[ 332.416288] cxacru_poll_status(..), jiffies=5000 [start]
[ 332.417312] calc_load(1), count=-1, jiffies=5001 [start]
[ 332.417322] calc_load(1), count=4999, jiffies=5001 [finish]
[ 332.423382] cxacru_poll_status(..), jiffies=5007, next=993 [finish]

kernel/timer.c | 8 +++++---
1 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/timer.c b/kernel/timer.c
index cb1b86a..ee61f6c 100644
--- a/kernel/timer.c
+++ b/kernel/timer.c
@@ -1225,17 +1225,19 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(avenrun);
static inline void calc_load(unsigned long ticks)
{
unsigned long active_tasks; /* fixed-point */
- static int count = LOAD_FREQ;
+ static int count = LOAD_FREQ + HZ/2;

count -= ticks;
- if (unlikely(count < 0)) {
+ if (unlikely(count <= 0)) {
active_tasks = count_active_tasks();
do {
CALC_LOAD(avenrun[0], EXP_1, active_tasks);
CALC_LOAD(avenrun[1], EXP_5, active_tasks);
CALC_LOAD(avenrun[2], EXP_15, active_tasks);
count += LOAD_FREQ;
- } while (count < 0);
+ } while (count <= 0);
+
+ count = round_jiffies_relative(count + HZ/2) - HZ/2;
}
}

--
1.5.0.1


--
Simon Arlott
-
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