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Subjectkernel builds starving evolution process - scheduler issue? (was Re: [patch] Real-Time Preemption, -RT-2.6.10-rc2-mm2-V0.7.30-9)
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On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 08:33 -0500, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 04:45 +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > * Lee Revell <rlrevell@joe-job.com> wrote:
>
> > >
> > > The symptom is that CPU bound tasks like kernel compiles will starve
> > > I/O bound tasks like evolution for a _long_ time. If I have a kernel
> > > build and external modules building at the same time and Evolution
> > > goes to "Update message list...", it can sit and spin with a blank
> > > message pane for a minute or two. If I suspend the builds, the
> > > message list renders immediately.
> >
> > could you try the vanilla -rc2-mm2 kernel (with PREEMPT enabled), does
> > it behave in such a way too? At first sight this could be a property of
> > the upstream scheduler, but maybe it's special to PREEMPT_RT.
> >
>
> Have you notice this behavior with other interactive (I/O) tasks, such
> as bash. Evolution is quite a big utility, and might be doing something
> in the background. If you see the same behavior with bash then there is
> no doubt that the compile is slowing down an I/O intensive task.
>

No. Only evolution (2.0) exhibits the problem. But, it looks like
evolution uses a comparable amount of CPU to a kernel build just
updating the message list. All stracing it shows me is that it spends a
hell of a lot of time polling(). I think this might be a bloat issue.

> Another variable can be memory. Are you running this on something with
> adequate memory, or is you harddrive churning like mad and you're
> constantly thrashing the swap space?
>

No, I have plenty of RAM (512M). I am using a 600Mhz C3 so the system
is probably CPU bound. But, it seems like evolution should make a
little more progress. I often find myself having to background all
build processes for a few seconds to let the message list render. Once
the list renders, and I resume the builds, evolution is more or less
usable. Running gtk-gnutella in the background will also make evolution
horribly slow.

Running the offending, CPU bound processes at a high nice value solves
the problem. But now I am wasting half my fscking cycles "Updating
message list...". Grr.

Lee

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