Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

phoronix.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 407 posts

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#21

Post by izacus »

mikkupikku wrote: post #3

> SCX-LAVD has been worked on by Linux consulting firm Igalia under contract for Valve It seems like every time I read about this kind of stuff, it's being done by contractors. I think Proton is similar. Of course that makes it no less awesome, but it makes me wonder about the contractor to employee ratio at Valve. Do they pretty much stick to Steam/game development and contract out most of the rest?

This is how "Company funding OSS" looks like in real life.

There have been demands to do that more on HN lately. This is how it looks like when it happens - a company paying for OSS development.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#22

Post by wizzwizz4 »

TZubiri wrote: post #20
hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generated comments are not allowed on HN.

I feel the intent of these rules are to forbid undisclosed aigen comments. If you ban disclosed usage of AIgen, you will get covert usage of AIgen

Such behaviour is extremely obvious. Anyone capable of hiding it is also capable of just… not using AIgen.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#24

Post by bigyabai »

TZubiri wrote: post #20
hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generated comments are not allowed on HN.

I feel the intent of these rules are to forbid undisclosed aigen comments. If you ban disclosed usage of AIgen, you will get covert usage of AIgen

> you will get covert usage of AIgen

We get that regardless of how we ban disclosed usage.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#25

Post by chucky_z »

mikkupikku wrote: post #3

> SCX-LAVD has been worked on by Linux consulting firm Igalia under contract for Valve It seems like every time I read about this kind of stuff, it's being done by contractors. I think Proton is similar. Of course that makes it no less awesome, but it makes me wonder about the contractor to employee ratio at Valve. Do they pretty much stick to Steam/game development and contract out most of the rest?

This isn’t explicitly called out in any of the other comments in my opinion so I’ll state this. Valve as a company is incredibly focused internally on its business. Its business is games, game hardware, and game delivery. For anything outside of that purview instead of trying to build a huge internal team they contract out. I’m genuinely curious why other companies don’t do this style more often because it seems incredibly cost effective. They hire top level contractors to do top tier work on hyper specific areas and everyone benefits. I think this kind of work is why Valve gets a free pass to do some real heinous shit (all the gambling stuff) and maintain incredible good will. They’re a true “take the good with the bad” kind of company. I certainly don’t condone all the bad they’ve put out, and I also have to recognize all the good they’ve done at the same time.

Back to the root point. Small company focused on core business competencies, extremely effective at contracting non-core business functions. I wish more businesses functioned this way.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#26

Post by MarleTangible »

Fiveplus wrote: post #17

Valve is practically singlehandedly dragging the Linux ecosystem forward in areas that nobody else wanted to touch. They needed Windows games to run on Linux so we got massive Proton/Wine advancements. They needed better display output for the deck and we got HDR and VRR support in wayland. They also needed smoother frame pacing and we got a scheduler that Zuck is now using to run data centers. Its funny to think tha…

Over time they're going to touch things that people were waiting for Microsoft to do for years. I don't have an example in mind at the moment, but it's a lot better to make the changes yourself than wait for OS or console manufacturer to take action.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#27

Post by 0x1ch »

accelbred wrote: post #12
bigyabai wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, part of it is that Linux's default scheduler is braindead by modern standards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Completely_Fair_Scheduler

CFS was replaced by EEVDF, no?

I vaguely remember reading when this occurred. It was very recent no? Last few years for sure.

> The Linux kernel began transitioning to EEVDF in version 6.6 (as a new option in 2024), moving away from the earlier Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) in favor of a version of EEVDF proposed by Peter Zijlstra in 2023 [2-4]. More information regarding CFS can be found in CFS Scheduler.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#28

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

bigyabai wrote: post #8
kstrauser wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more surprised that the scheduler made for a handheld gaming console is also demonstrably good for Facebook's servers.

I mean, part of it is that Linux's default scheduler is braindead by modern standards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Completely_Fair_Scheduler

Part of that is the assumption that Amazon/Meta/Google all have dedicated engineers who should be doing nothing but tuning performance for 0.0001% efficiency gains. At the scale of millions of servers, those tweaks add up to real dollar savings, and I suspect little of how they run is stock.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#29

Post by mort96 »

TZubiri wrote: post #20
hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generated comments are not allowed on HN.

I feel the intent of these rules are to forbid undisclosed aigen comments. If you ban disclosed usage of AIgen, you will get covert usage of AIgen

You can actually ban both.
Post reply on HN