Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Thu 26th Apr 2007 06:36 UTC, submitted by RJop
Linux Kernel 2.6.21 has been announced. Linus writes: "So the big change during 2.6.21 is all the timer changes to support a tickless system (and even with ticks, more varied time sources). Thanks (when it no longer broke for lots of people ;) go to Thomas Gleixner and Ingo Molnar and a cadre of testers and coders." More info here and here.
Thread beginning with comment 234087
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:
2005-07-07
I haven't studied the tickless kernel, but I ASSUME that this explains the basics:
Normally the kernel is issuing an interrupt every X milliseconds in order to preempt processes. These interrupts are (normally?) fired at a constant rate. These ticks can influence the power states, and make the CPU etc. change to a more active power state even though no preemption is needed.
The tickless kernel will not fire new clock-interrupts unless there are active processes and a need for preemption. The tickless kernel will only wait for external interrupts when all processes are idle.