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

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

#71

Post by pbh101 »

pmontra wrote: post #41
benoau wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It just works" sleep and hibernate. "Slide left or right" CPU and GPU underclocking.

Sleep and hibernate don't just work on Windows unless Microsoft work with laptop and boards manufacturers to make Windows play nice with all those drivers. It's inevitable that it's hit and miss on any other OS that manufacturers don't care much about. Apple does nearly everything inside their walls, that's why it just works.

Regardless of how it must be implemented, if this is a desirable feature then this explanation isn’t an absolution of Linux but rather an indictment: its development model cannot consistently provide this product feature.

(And same for Windows to the degree it is more inconsistent on Windows than Mac)

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

#72

Post by tayo42 »

magicalhippo wrote: post #60
tayo42 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I rarely see contacting out work go well. This seems like an exception

If you have competent people on both sides who care, I don't see why it wouldn't work. The problem seems, at least from a distance, to be that bosses treat it as a fire-and-forget solution. We haven't had any software done by oursiders yet, but we have hired consultants to help us on specifics, like changing our infra and help move local servers to the cloud. They've been very effective and helped us a lot. We had ta…

I think your first 2 sentances are pretty common issues though.

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

#73

Post by laweijfmvo »

tra3 wrote: post #63

I'm curious how this came to be: > Meta has found that the scheduler can actually adapt and work very well on the hyperscaler's large servers. I'm not at all in the know about this, so it would not even occur to me to test it. Is it the case that if you're optimizing Linux performance you'd just try whatever is available?

almost certainly bottom-up: some eng somewhere read about it, ran a test, saw positive results, and it bubbles up from there. this is still how lots of cool things happen at big companies like Meta.

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

#74

Post by bbkane »

7bit wrote: post #56
asveikau wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at Microsoft during the Windows 8 cycle. I remember hearing about a kernel feature I found interesting. Then I found linux had it for a few years at the time. I think the reality is that Linux is ahead on a lot of kernel stuff. More experimentation is happening.

And behind on a lot of stuff. The Microsoft's ACLs are nothing short of one of the best designed permission systems there are. On the surface, they are as simple as Linux UOG/rwx stuff if you want it to be, but you can really, REALLY dive into the technology and apply super specific permissions.

Do you have any favorite docs or blogs on these? Reading about one of the best designed permissions systems sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon ;)

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

#75

Post by athoneycutt »

wmf wrote: post #64
asveikau wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at Microsoft during the Windows 8 cycle. I remember hearing about a kernel feature I found interesting. Then I found linux had it for a few years at the time. I think the reality is that Linux is ahead on a lot of kernel stuff. More experimentation is happening.

I was surprised to hear that Windows just added native NVMe which Linux has had for many years. I wonder if Azure has been paying the SCSI emulation tax this whole time.

It was always wild to me that their installer was just not able to detect an NVMe drive out of the box in certain situations. I saw it a few times with customers when I was doing support for a Linux company.

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

#76

Post by TulliusCicero »

tayo42 wrote: post #43
chucky_z wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 incr…

I feel like I rarely see contacting out work go well. This seems like an exception

Valve contracts out to actually competent people and companies rather than giant bodycount consulting firms.

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

#77

Post by giantrobot »

kstrauser wrote: post #4
999900000999 wrote: post #2

That's the magic of open source. Valve can't say ohh noes you need a deluxe enterprise license.

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

Latency-aware scheduling is important in a lot of domains. Getting video frames or controller input delivered on a deadline is a similar problem to getting voice or video packets delivered on a deadline. Meanwhile housecleaning processes like log rotation can sort of happen whenever.

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

#78

Post by [deleted] »

trueismywork wrote: post #62
7bit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And behind on a lot of stuff. The Microsoft's ACLs are nothing short of one of the best designed permission systems there are. On the surface, they are as simple as Linux UOG/rwx stuff if you want it to be, but you can really, REALLY dive into the technology and apply super specific permissions.

You have ACLs on linux too

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by Krssst »

benoau wrote: post #31
MarleTangible wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"It just works" sleep and hibernate. "Slide left or right" CPU and GPU underclocking.

On my Framework 13 AMD : Sleep just works on Fedora. Sleep is unreliable on Windows; if my fans are all running at full speed while running a game and I close the lid to begin sleeping, it will start sleeping and eventually wake up with all fans blaring.

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

#80

Post by Arainach »

trueismywork wrote: post #62
7bit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And behind on a lot of stuff. The Microsoft's ACLs are nothing short of one of the best designed permission systems there are. On the surface, they are as simple as Linux UOG/rwx stuff if you want it to be, but you can really, REALLY dive into the technology and apply super specific permissions.

You have ACLs on linux too

ACLs in Linux were tacked on later; not everything supports them properly. They were built into Windows NT from the start and are used consistently across kernel and userspace, making them far more useful in practice.

Also, as far as I know Linux doesn't support DENY ACLs, which Windows does.

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