Re: [PATCH 2/2] sched: cpufreq: use rt_avg as estimate of required RT CPU capacity

Peter Zijlstra
2016-08-31T16:40:20Z

On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 06:28:10PM +0200, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> > That is the way it's been with cpufreq and many systems (including all
> > mobile devices) rely on that to not destroy power. RT + variable cpufreq
> > is not deterministic.
> >
> > Given we don't have good constraints on RT tasks I don't think we should
> > try to strengthen the semantics there. Folks should either move to DL if
> > they want determinism *and* not-sucky power, or continue disabling
> > cpufreq if they are able to do so.
>
> RT deterministic behaviour is all about meeting the deadlines. If your
> deadline is relaxed enough that you can meet it even with the lowest cpu
> frequency then it's perfectly fine to enable cpufreq. The same logic applies
> to C-States.
>
> There are a lot of RT systems out there which enable both. If cpufreq or
> c-states cause a deadline violation because the constraints of the system are
> tight, then people will disable it and we need a knob for both.
>
> Realtime is not as fast as possible. It's as fast as specified.

Sure, problem is of course that RR/FIFO doesn't specify anything so the
users are left to prod knobs.

Another problem is that we have many semi related knobs; we have the
global RT runtime limit knob, but that doesn't affect cpufreq (maybe it
should) and cpufreq has knobs to set f_min and f_max, which again are
unaware of RT anything.

So before we go do anything, I'd like input on what is needed and how
things should tie together to make most sense.