scheduler starvation running irman with 2.5.64bk2

[rwhron@earthlink.net]

irman triggers some odd behavior with 2.5.64bk2 on uniprocessor 
K6/2 475.  "ps aux" hasn't returned for a couple hours, though
irman appears to be doing it's thing.  I haven't tried irman on smp.

Time to run irman 3x.

2.5.63			4066 seconds
2.5.63-mjb1		2993 seconds
2.5.63-mm2-dline	2856 seconds
2.5.64			3473 seconds
2.5.64bk2		??

Time to complete irman is variable because the amount of work
done in 3 runs is also variable.

vmstat looks fairly typical, and it prints every 60 seconds.

vmstat 60
   procs                      memory      swap          io     system      cpu
 r  b  w   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in    cs us sy id
 4  0  0   2564 376368    108   1916    0    0     0     0 1092 25978  2 98  0
 4  0  0   2564 376368    108   1920    0    0     0     0 1092 26102  2 98  0

This is vmstat 60 from 2.5.64

   procs                      memory      swap          io     system      cpu
 r  b  w   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in    cs us sy id
 4  0  0   2552 377024    116   1520    0    0     0     0 1092 32649  4 96  0
 3  0  0   2552 377024    116   1520    0    0     0     0 1092 32865  5 95  0


There are probably less than 50 processes running.  
"ps aux" doesn't hear <ctrl z> or <ctrl c>.

Machine doesn't accept new ssh connections.

It's as if after starting irman, new processes don't get any CPU time.

-- 
Randy Hron
http://home.earthlink.net/~rwhron/kernel/bigbox.html