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Date:      Fri, 17 Sep 2004 22:32:17 GMT
From:      Arne Woerner <arne_woerner@yahoo.com>
To:        freebsd-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   kern/71833: multiple process disc access / injustice
Message-ID:  <200409172232.i8HMWHmN087102@www.freebsd.org>
Resent-Message-ID: <200409172240.i8HMeWbl057956@freefall.freebsd.org>

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>Number:         71833
>Category:       kern
>Synopsis:       multiple process disc access / injustice
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Fri Sep 17 22:40:31 GMT 2004
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Arne Woerner
>Release:        5.2-CURRENT-20040408-JPSNAP
>Organization:
>Environment:
FreeBSD neo.riddick.homeunix.org 5.2-CURRENT-20040408-JPSNAP FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT-20040408-JPSNAP #76: Wed Apr 21 13:45:34 GMT 2004     aw@neo.riddick.homeunix.org:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/DAREDEVIL  i386
>Description:
I saw several times, that two processes who compete about disc access (same disc) and who need different transfer-rates (e. g. mplayer (read 100KBytes/sec; nice 0) and fsck -p -B (read/write ???MBytes/sec; nice +4)) behave not so optimal:

The one have wants more data in the same time wins, even though it has a higher nice value, and even though the other process has quite moderate needs (I think my mplayer process just needs below 1% of the possible bandwidth).

Although I am surely not the first one, and although my FreeBSD version is not the newest, I would like to recommend kindly to use a similar scheduler like for the processor (maybe it would be even possible to find a sequence of disc access, that would be faster while still meeting the requirements of the processes (I was thinking of moving the disc heads around: if there is (1.) a read request near the centre and (2.) a write request near the border and (3.) a write request near the centre, then the sequence 1.->3.->2. looks better to me)).

Since I have 512MB main memory space, I do not think, that this is caused by a lack of main memory...

Sorry if my idea is too spaced off... :-)

-Arne

>How-To-Repeat:
1. start a high access rate process (like fsck -p -B)
2. start a low access rate process (like mplayer on a 1000kbit/sec movie)
3. I can see that mplayer hangs a little bit (btw.: even a xterm and a tcsh shell process would behave slower)
>Fix:
Just theoretically...

But I would like to assist such development...
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:



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