Intel Chief Evangelist Comments on Linux Scheduler

ByeByeWintel writes "James Reinders is Intel's Chief Evangelist for Intel's Software Development Products. In a recent interview on Devx.com he stated: 'If I could get ONE wish fulfilled would be for OS scheduling to focus on processes, and not threads, for scheduling. And demand that processes manage their scheduling of threads ... There is a lot of opportunity for operating systems to offer these types of control in the 'running of applications' interfaces. I'd like an OS to let me specify the 'world' my application runs in (which processors, how many, etc.) These interfaces are available in Windows at run time (the task manager will let you adjust where a running task can go).'"

So do it

[QuantumG]

I hear Intel has some engineers who you could get to implement this. If you don't completely botch it, you might even get it into Linus' tree.

It's Free Software, you can add whatever you want.

BAD headline

[rmdir -r *]

Nowhere in the article does he /ever/ mention the Linux scheduler.

Resume your regularly scheduled Con vs Ingo flamewar.

Re:Puh-leeeeze!

[Somegeek]

An 'Evangelist' is this instance is someone who is a promoter, not a follower. So you are wrong on that count as well as the already noted 'site' 'sight' thing. You might want to steer away from criticizing others for a while...

Re:So do it

[teknognome]

It's elitist and arrogant when directed at a regular user, but when it's directed at some official person of a company that does contribute to Linux projects, it's a bit different.

Re:which processors

[BradleyUffner]

So does Linux, which makes his statement moot, and indicates he is an idiot or an asshat.

OR maby you don't understand what he is asking for.

Re:Hello??

[phoenixwade]

The word Linux doesn't even appear anywhere in that entire article.

Yeah, it does, almost to the end of the article... on Page - 2. But that is irrelevant. Yet another summary that has little or nothing to do with the article, Which actually focuses on Intels Threaded Building Blocks. I really hate misleading summaries. I know that some have issues with the signal to noise ratio of "news" to marketing or old news, but really, a good summary means you could, at least, skip over the stuff you didn't want to read....

Slashdot would be kicked out of Journalism School

[headkase]

Not only is it obvious that the submitter didn't read the article but by posting it its obvious that the 'editor' didn't either! Jebus! It's about a library template that Intel provides to developers! Linux gets a passing mention on the second page but other than that coincidence the writeup has nothing to do with the real article! And then there are people tagging the article as 'clueless' - I hope they meant the submitter because if they meant the article then ironically they would have been showing their own 'cluelessness'.
This is the first time I've felt a need to complain about /.'s integrity btw even though I've seen more articles fly-by that shouldn't have over the years.

Re:I don't understand

[timeOday]

I just hope the emphasis remains on a scheduler that "does the right thing" instead of requiring manual specification of these things to get acceptable performance for most situations. (I'm sure there are cases where manually pegging particular processes to particular CPUs is a good thing, but I can't think of any offhand).

Re:You think maybe they have other things to do?

[xenocide2]

Either way is ok, there's nothing wrong with saying "We are all about DIY, if you aren't willing to do it, don't expect other people to), you just have to recognise that is a viewpoint inconsistent with "We believe this is something everyone could and should use."

There's nothing necessarily incompatible with those viewpoints. The point isn't necessarily "write it yourself," but to take ownership of the need and get it done, perhaps by paying others. You can then go about writing to others and say "You should use this stuff, and we can help make it better for your needs." Its a silly belief that other people are going to fix your problem for free if you sit there wishing loud enough. Open source projects are truly successful not when you take responsibility for listening to what people want, but allowing the public to take ownership in the software that could address their needs.

Re:You think maybe they have other things to do?

[xenocide2]

I should point out that SGI has done exactly this: on behalf of their customers they go about fixing scalability problems in Linux. The results are quite interesting -- eight thousand CPU computers and the like. To give credit to the Evanglist, perhaps he was hoping coworkers and superiors at Intel would recognize the need and step up.

Re:You think maybe they have other things to do?

[QuantumG]

Meh. I don't speak for anyone else. I speak for myself. I say if you have a need for feature X then add it. If you're not willing to invest the time (or money) to make feature X more than a "gee, I wish" request then you don't really have a *need* for it. As for this "We believe this is something everyone could and should use" crap, for a start, I don't speak for anyone but myself, and I think Free Software is something a lot of people can find a use for, and if you can't, then don't use it. If, however, you just meant that end users might have a need for feature X but they're unable or unwilling to make that feature a reality, well, that's what the commercial distros are for. Go nag your Redhat representative.

Re:I don't understand

[xenocide2]

Clearly, you expect too much from someone who's job title includes the word "Evangelist".

Re:You think maybe they have other things to do?

[Rakishi]

Part of having a successful product is listening to what people want and working to implement that. Now maybe you think that the devs shouldn't care, that it should just be whatever it is and there shouldn't be any thought given to making it what people want, unless said person is willing to do that. Fair enough, that's a valid stance. However if you take that stance, then do go evangelising Linux as a replacement for Windows or an everyman's OS. Realise that if that is how things are to be done, it is a sysadmin/geek OS and will never be otherwise.

So you mean that Microsoft will actually listen to every suggestion someone makes and consider implementing it?

Either way is ok, there's nothing wrong with saying "We are all about DIY, if you aren't willing to do it, don't expect other people to), you just have to recognise that is a viewpoint inconsistent with "We believe this is something everyone could and should use."

Why exactly? Every proprietary company pretty much says "we do this for money, if we don't want to implement it go fuck yourself."

You expect every fucking suggestion to be implemented? If not then what DO you suggest? The developers simply say that they are going to do X, if you want to do Y then you need to do it yourself. You can't implement every bloody possible feature in the damn universe, which is apparently what you want. Instead they implement what they think meets their own goals. They claim that this is enough to work for everyone. It isn't perfect for everyone but NOTHING ever is, if someone wants a feature desperately they either need to implement it themselves or find someone else to do it.

Re:You think maybe they have other things to do?

[killjoe]

>Sorry, but the "Do it yourself," attitude is just bad.

It's great. That's what open source is all about.

>Part of having a successful product is listening to what people want and working to implement that.

Ah I see where you got confused.

Linux is not a product. It's already successful.

Re:Ok, that's completely fine

[QuantumG]

Fair enough. If you try to switch to Linux and discover it doesn't have what you need then go back.

As for considering people's ideas, yeah, great, developers do that, all the time. The problem is when the developer says "look, it won't work" and the people harp on about how right they are. That's often when the DIY attitude comes out, because nothing says "you were wrong" like running code.

Really a sad comment on society

[Per Abrahamsen]

> And this, ladies and gentleman, is why all Linux users are perceived as elitist, arrogant bastards.

You are right. The way free software works is that if you want something done, you either do it yourself, or you pay somebody to do it for you.

Somehow, this has become at odds with mainstream society. People have come to expect that if you want something done, you whine about it for long enough, and someone else will do it for you.

It is a society of builders and whiners.

I know which side I'm on.

Re:the real world, too.

[JoelKatz]

Brilliant.

The idea that the scheduler should focus on processes rather than threads is one of those well-known wrong ideas that comes up all the time. The thinking is that it doesn't make sense to give twice as much processing time to a process just because it uses two threads. The thing is, does it make sense to give a job twice as much processing time just because it uses two processes rather than two threads?

There is no reason for the scheduler to treat a thread better or worse just because of which process it belongs to. There is simply no rational defense for this position.