Comment 55 for bug 524281

Revision history for this message
Leif Walsh (leif.walsh) wrote : Re: [Bug 524281] Re: Tens of wakes per second in "[kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick" on Core 2 Duo even with only 1 core enabled

Dear all who think this bug is taking too long:

You're right. It's been outstanding for quite some time now, and
really should have been fixed before release, or else the 2.6.32
kernel shouldn't have been accepted.

As it is, the bug is not fixed. The best people for the job are the
linux kernel devs, not ubuntu employees/contributors. They have a
patch and are in the process of reviewing it. Believe me when I tell
you that you want them to finish reviewing it.

Once it's accepted, it'll be pushed in the next 2.6.32 maintenance
release. I expect to see this in .15, if it's not already in .14
(which got pushed a last week and since I haven't been following this
patch, I don't know if it's in there). If it goes in .15, it'll be
another few weeks to couple of months. Once that happens, the ubuntu
people can package it up and release it as a maintenance update.

Depending on the climate, you may also see this patch in a newer,
backported kernel (2.6.33 and above), so if you enable backports you
might see it sooner.

Either way, there's nothing you can do except either wait for a newer
kernel or downgrade to an older kernel (2.6.31 is a good choice, as
evidenced by some people above).

Another way to soften the blow of this bug is simply to give the load
balancer less to do. I've noticed that, while it certainly causes far
more wakeups than it should, the wakeups *scale with the load* of the
computer. Therefore, if you do all the things you normally do to
reduce wakeups, the load balancer will be less of an issue as well.

Whatever you choose to do (I'm just sticking with the kernel and
living with the bug...it's not so bad with my usage pattern), be
patient. You'll get the fix soon enough, and soon after that you'll
forget it was ever a problem.

<wink>If that's not enough for you, go install slackware.</wink>