2.6.8-rc2-mm2, staircase sched and ESD

2.6.8-rc2-mm2, staircase sched and ESD

[Zan Lynx]

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The 2.6.8-rc2-mm2 kernel has the staircase scheduler, right?  Well, I am
seeing an odd thing.  At least, I think it is odd.

I'm running Fedora Core 2 and playing music with Rhythmbox.  When I
watch top sorted by priority, I see esd slowly increase its priority
until it reaches 38, then it goes back to 20.  ESD is only using 1-2%
CPU.

This is causing a problem because doing just about anything in X, like
bring up a new window or drag a window causes the sound to just stop.

Why does ESD's priority keep climbing?

Oh yes, this does not happen if I change /proc/sys/fs/interactive to 0. 
When it is 0, X's priority climbs faster than ESDs and does not cause
the problem.
-- 
Zan Lynx <zlynx@acm.org>

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Re: 2.6.8-rc2-mm2, staircase sched and ESD

[Con Kolivas]

Zan Lynx writes:

> The 2.6.8-rc2-mm2 kernel has the staircase scheduler, right?  Well, I am
> seeing an odd thing.  At least, I think it is odd.
> 
> I'm running Fedora Core 2 and playing music with Rhythmbox.  When I
> watch top sorted by priority, I see esd slowly increase its priority
> until it reaches 38, then it goes back to 20.  ESD is only using 1-2%
> CPU.
> 
> This is causing a problem because doing just about anything in X, like
> bring up a new window or drag a window causes the sound to just stop.
> 
> Why does ESD's priority keep climbing?
> 
> Oh yes, this does not happen if I change /proc/sys/fs/interactive to 0. 
> When it is 0, X's priority climbs faster than ESDs and does not cause
> the problem.

Yes this is a known issue with esd. It basically wakes up far too frequently 
for it's own good. esd should not be required with alsa drivers and 
2.6 since alsa supports sharing of the sound card / mixing on it's own so 
adding esd adds an unnecessary layer to the sound drivers. It ends 
up doing this:
esd->oss emulation->alsa.

Cheers,
Con

Re: 2.6.8-rc2-mm2, staircase sched and ESD

[Nick Piggin]

Con Kolivas wrote:

> Zan Lynx writes:
>
>> The 2.6.8-rc2-mm2 kernel has the staircase scheduler, right?  Well, I am
>> seeing an odd thing.  At least, I think it is odd.
>>
>> I'm running Fedora Core 2 and playing music with Rhythmbox.  When I
>> watch top sorted by priority, I see esd slowly increase its priority
>> until it reaches 38, then it goes back to 20.  ESD is only using 1-2%
>> CPU.
>>
>> This is causing a problem because doing just about anything in X, like
>> bring up a new window or drag a window causes the sound to just stop.
>>
>> Why does ESD's priority keep climbing?
>>
>> Oh yes, this does not happen if I change /proc/sys/fs/interactive to 
>> 0. When it is 0, X's priority climbs faster than ESDs and does not cause
>> the problem.
>
>
> Yes this is a known issue with esd. It basically wakes up far too 
> frequently for it's own good. esd should not be required with alsa 
> drivers and 2.6 since alsa supports sharing of the sound card / mixing 
> on it's own so adding esd adds an unnecessary layer to the sound 
> drivers. It ends up doing this:
> esd->oss emulation->alsa.
>

Even so, this would be a showstopper if we're talking about replacing 
the 2.6 scheduler,
wouldn't you agree?

Re: 2.6.8-rc2-mm2, staircase sched and ESD

[Martin Schlemmer]

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On Thu, 2004-08-05 at 00:31, Con Kolivas wrote:
> Zan Lynx writes:
> 
> > The 2.6.8-rc2-mm2 kernel has the staircase scheduler, right?  Well, I am
> > seeing an odd thing.  At least, I think it is odd.
> > 
> > I'm running Fedora Core 2 and playing music with Rhythmbox.  When I
> > watch top sorted by priority, I see esd slowly increase its priority
> > until it reaches 38, then it goes back to 20.  ESD is only using 1-2%
> > CPU.
> > 
> > This is causing a problem because doing just about anything in X, like
> > bring up a new window or drag a window causes the sound to just stop.
> > 
> > Why does ESD's priority keep climbing?
> > 
> > Oh yes, this does not happen if I change /proc/sys/fs/interactive to 0. 
> > When it is 0, X's priority climbs faster than ESDs and does not cause
> > the problem.
> 
> Yes this is a known issue with esd. It basically wakes up far too frequently 
> for it's own good. esd should not be required with alsa drivers and 
> 2.6 since alsa supports sharing of the sound card / mixing on it's own so 
> adding esd adds an unnecessary layer to the sound drivers. It ends 
> up doing this:
> esd->oss emulation->alsa.
> 

This is not entirely true - or at least not on a more modern
distro that uses alsa:

---
nosferatu root # lsof | grep esd | grep /dev
esd        8886  azarah  mem    CHR     116,16                6226 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
esd        8886  azarah    0r   CHR        1,3                 756 /dev/null
esd        8886  azarah    1u   CHR        4,4                1193 /dev/vc/4
esd        8886  azarah    2u   CHR        4,4                1193 /dev/vc/4
esd        8886  azarah   29u   CHR     116,16                6226 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
esd        8886  azarah   30r   CHR     116,33                6058 /dev/snd/timer
esd       16748  azarah  mem    CHR     116,16                6226 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
esd       16748  azarah   29u   CHR     116,16                6226 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
nosferatu root # ldd `which esd` | grep asound
        libasound.so.2 => /usr/lib/libasound.so.2 (0x41b0d000)
nosferatu root #
---

-- 
Martin Schlemmer

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