Hi Mike > SUSE ... says that the first step to get there is to disable irqbalance
I've read the same, IMHO that is just "if you want to manually tune, disable it" which does not imply that it is bad to have it. But this is how I read it, I have not talked to the authors to get their underlaying reasoning. > Applications vendors ... currently recommend removing irqbalance The only one that does so AFAICS is cpufreq and everyone else just links to their reasoning and follows. And even some statements there like "If you are still running irqbalance, you are not getting the maximum performance your system is capable of!" are hard to believe as a general statement - especially without data across a wide variety of system types and workload. As we have seen as well in the references linked, irqbalance helps just as much for "maximum performance" in many other cases. > I found this blog (https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/irqbalance- design-and-internals) Thanks, every extra background we find will only help (except for those joining later to read more). > The question I have is, if Ubuntu is Debian Branch, and we long ago went > from having different kernels for desktop & server in ubuntu-base, but do > have ubuntu-server packages and ubuntu-desktop packages, where things could > be different, why is this still a broad sweep as a default install "for all"? Because there was no well-funded conclusion like "it really is bad for environment X" to remove it. You are right that there are no technical blockers to make it e.g. kept in servers but no more the default in Desktop. After all it is already dropped in cloud-images used in virtual environemnts as it had a more clear reasoning and argument there. And there are also cases where irqbalance missing caused performance impact and bug reports like the already mentioned [1] (clearly high scale server though) > I am happy that this is getting discussed properly now so that we can > relook at this, and what it means to us today. Ack, that is why I tried to compile all I've found into one place. [1]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/irqbalance/+bug/2038573 -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to ubuntu-meta in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1833322 Title: Consider removing irqbalance from default install on desktop images Status in irqbalance package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in ubuntu-meta package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: as per https://github.com/pop-os/default-settings/issues/60 Distribution (run cat /etc/os-release): $ cat /etc/os-release NAME="Pop!_OS" VERSION="19.04" ID=ubuntu ID_LIKE=debian PRETTY_NAME="Pop!_OS 19.04" VERSION_ID="19.04" HOME_URL="https://system76.com/pop"; SUPPORT_URL="http://support.system76.com"; BUG_REPORT_URL="https://github.com/pop-os/pop/issues"; PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://system76.com/privacy"; VERSION_CODENAME=disco UBUNTU_CODENAME=disco Related Application and/or Package Version (run apt policy $PACKAGE NAME): $ apt policy irqbalance irqbalance: Installed: 1.5.0-3ubuntu1 Candidate: 1.5.0-3ubuntu1 Version table: *** 1.5.0-3ubuntu1 500 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco/main amd64 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status $ apt rdepends irqbalance irqbalance Reverse Depends: Recommends: ubuntu-standard gce-compute-image-packages Issue/Bug Description: as per konkor/cpufreq#48 and http://konkor.github.io/cpufreq/faq/#irqbalance-detected irqbalance is technically not needed on desktop systems (supposedly it is mainly for servers), and may actually reduce performance and power savings. It appears to provide benefits only to server environments that have relatively-constant loading. If it is truly a server- oriented package, then it shouldn't be installed by default on a desktop/laptop system and shouldn't be included in desktop OS images. Steps to reproduce (if you know): This is potentially an issue with all default installs. Expected behavior: n/a Other Notes: I can safely remove it via "sudo apt purge irqbalance" without any apparent adverse side-effects. If someone is running a situation where they need it, then they always have the option of installing it from the repositories. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/irqbalance/+bug/1833322/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
