From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 5 00:49:30 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AAB3F106564A for ; Tue, 5 Apr 2011 00:49:30 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from amvandemore@gmail.com) Received: from mail-fx0-f54.google.com (mail-fx0-f54.google.com [209.85.161.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 381588FC14 for ; Tue, 5 Apr 2011 00:49:29 +0000 (UTC) Received: by fxm11 with SMTP id 11so5675412fxm.13 for ; Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:49:29 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=buuE39NxZZ3cEZeoBB0Ps6x+lUR/1axOUDB97TFH9mA=; b=Wko830k1gjrbZ76m6nmJ7FEjty02Bv/WFu5HvfR1OhEjkw/kGTqIpGUMxRfY7cD1FO 1i/cpdwoC/EeMHkQwUS6ob9XZ3hgbFHCdEylWsaNyEi8Lh1zgSZT3sAAiH9j8VTk/bYo Gh8tmPDhDszE5X4wD/Hh7jVS7i+TwmRrTHOK8= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; b=o8PpbONo0f6C9fNg85O0OhvcPPjlt0z8ffadQc4GuQTWBw7hXu/D3CzLR9bOoy9qUW DmfDr3edHQc85ebJTPoQk08OaDU83ihHBTzIHeu34x0v/jhhradhmHJCMh3i6o8UCvYe 8FiMXT9DhZVmo7uzOghG/uaeffOvzkVFM3YF4= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.223.127.210 with SMTP id h18mr524149fas.79.1301964569128; Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:49:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.223.101.208 with HTTP; Mon, 4 Apr 2011 17:49:29 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2011 19:49:29 -0500 Message-ID: From: Adam Vande More To: Eitan Adler Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: questions@freebsd.org, =?UTF-8?Q?Kristaps_K=C5=ABlis?= Subject: Re: tuning a system for a single user X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:49:30 -0000 On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 7:32 PM, Eitan Adler wrote: > > I believe no FreeBSD system is "single user". As root, daemon users, > > system users, "nobody" is required for running system smoothly, > > securely and easy, so scheduling is nessecary :) > > Obviously :-) > > I guess a better way to ask the question would be "for a desktop > user". I see a lot tuning guides that show how to getting scalable > systems - but few show potential changes for desktop users. > Some people have reported setting kern.sched.preempt_thresh=224 yields a smoother desktop experience, but I don't know exactly what that sysctl actually changes, nor have I tried it myself. I haven't experienced any thing I would consider a problem with my FreeBSD desktop experience, but my machines are relatively well powered. If you're targeting something like an embedded system, I'd guess you'd find the lowest hanging fruit by profiling a specific workload. I imagine it would start to get pretty complicated quite rapidly if you're in a complex environment as what's good for one workload might be rather poor on another. I might be way off in guessing your end goal, but what I would do on the embedded system is develop a minimal baseline automated testing for each subsystem(eg disk, network) then tie that into something like ministat(1) and one of those graphing utilities. Something like that could give you a comprehensive picture of what changes to kernel, sysctl's, etc are doing to performance. -- Adam Vande More