Re: [PATCH 5/5] cpufreq: schedutil: do not update rate limit ts when freq is unchanged

[Steve Muckle <steve.muckle@linaro.org>]

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 01:44:36AM +0200, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 11:20 PM, Steve Muckle <steve.muckle@linaro.org> wrote:
> > The rate limit timestamp (last_freq_update_time) is currently advanced
> > anytime schedutil re-evaluates the policy regardless of whether the CPU
> > frequency is changed or not. This means that utilization updates which
> > have no effect can cause much more significant utilization updates
> > (which require a large increase or decrease in CPU frequency) to be
> > delayed due to rate limiting.
> >
> > Instead only update the rate limiting timstamp when the requested
> > target-supported frequency changes. The rate limit will now apply to
> > the rate of CPU frequency changes rather than the rate of
> > re-evaluations of the policy frequency.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Steve Muckle <smuckle@linaro.org>
> 
> I'm sort of divided here to be honest.

It is true that this means we'll do more frequency re-evaluations, they
will occur until an actual frequency change is requested.

But the way it stands now, with a system's typical background activity
there are so many minor events that it is very common for throttling to
be in effect, causing major events to be ignored. 
> 
> > ---
> >  kernel/sched/cpufreq_schedutil.c | 3 +--
> >  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/kernel/sched/cpufreq_schedutil.c b/kernel/sched/cpufreq_schedutil.c
> > index e185075fcb5c..4d2907c8a142 100644
> > --- a/kernel/sched/cpufreq_schedutil.c
> > +++ b/kernel/sched/cpufreq_schedutil.c
> > @@ -117,12 +117,11 @@ static void sugov_update_commit(struct sugov_cpu *sg_cpu, int cpu, u64 time,
> >         struct sugov_policy *sg_policy = sg_cpu->sg_policy;
> >         struct cpufreq_policy *policy = sg_policy->policy;
> >
> > -       sg_policy->last_freq_update_time = time;
> > -
> >         if (sg_policy->next_freq == next_freq) {
> >                 trace_cpu_frequency(policy->cur, cpu);
> 
> You should at least rate limit the trace_cpu_frequency() thing here if
> you don't want to advance the last update time I think, or you may
> easily end up with the trace buffer flooded by irrelevant stuff.

Going back to the reason this tracepoint exists, is it known why
powertop thinks the CPU is idle when this tracepoint is removed? Maybe
it's possible to get rid of this tracepoint altogether.

Thanks for reviewing the series.

thanks,
Steve