Reworking 30 lines of Linux code could cut power use by up to 30 percent

Post by wkat4242 » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 8:24 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #32

ryao wrote: post #5

Linux added a busy polling feature for high performance networking. Most Linux software does not use it, but software used in datacenters (e.g. by CDNs) that does use it makes the system very energy inefficient when things are not busy. This patch gives the the kernel the ability to turn that off when not busy to regain energy efficiency until things become busy again. The article name is somewhat misleading, since i…

It’s a lot more nuanced than that. Being in a data center doesn’t imply heavy network utilization. The caveat is clearly outlined in the article being workload based not deployment based. If you have a home machine doing network routing it would absolutely benefit from this. In fact I would say probably the vast majority of Linux installs are home network devices, just people don’t know it. Embedded Linux machines do…

Post by d3Xt3r » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 8:48 PM UTC

matkoniecz wrote: post #20

d3Xt3r wrote: post #2

> The code has been implemented as part of the Linux kernel release version 6.13 in January. This is basically 3 month old news now.

What is wrong with 3 month old news? I in fact prefer ones that are not repeated based only on basis being new and much more likely to be confused/misleading/hoax/lie/not actually interesting. Similarly, I prefer old books, old computer games, old movies (or at least not ones currently being hot/viral/advertised), this allows a lot of trash to self-filter out. Including trash being breathlessly promoted and consumed.

Post by d3Xt3r » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 8:55 PM UTC

throw-qqqqq wrote: post #33

d3Xt3r wrote: post #2

> The code has been implemented as part of the Linux kernel release version 6.13 in January. This is basically 3 month old news now.

Well, I run Linux on both my laptops and desktops, consider myself an enthusiast etc., but I don’t track the development of the mainline Linux kernel closely enough to know what goes on there in the past three months. I may notice changes when they get adopted by upstream maintainers of my distro, but that usually takes time..

Post by kbolino » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 9:51 PM UTC

billy99k wrote: post #46

jolmg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without looking at stats, I would think android phones.

Android isn't Linux. While Android uses the Linux kernel, it's not a standard Linux distribution. It has its own user space and libraries, making it a distinct operating system.

Post by tuetuopay » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 10:46 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #80

tuetuopay wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically none of it would be applicable (if using a commercial router). They all use hardware offloading, and traffic seldom touches the CPU. Only "logical" tasks are raised to the CPU, like ARP resolution and the likes (what’s called "trap to cpu"). If you’re doing custom routing with a NUC or a basic Linux box, however, this would gain massive power savings because that box pretty much only does networking.

Only if you're using busy polling. Very little software uses it, because it's only a good fit if you think pegging a CPU to reduce latency responding to packets is a good trade.