From: Qing Wang <wangqing7171@gmail.com>
To: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
Juri Lelli <juri.lelli@redhat.com>,
Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@linaro.org>,
Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@arm.com>,
Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
Ben Segall <bsegall@google.com>, Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>,
Valentin Schneider <vschneid@redhat.com>,
K Prateek Nayak <kprateek.nayak@amd.com>
Cc: Tim Chen <tim.c.chen@linux.intel.com>,
Chen Yu <yu.c.chen@intel.com>,
Davi Chaves Azevedo <davichazbh@gmail.com>,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Qing Wang <wangqing7171@gmail.com>
Subject: [PATCH v4] sched/fair: Replace random newidle_balance with Bresenham accumulator
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:19:46 +0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20261030091946.2498870-1-wangqing7171@gmail.com> (raw)
The current NI_RANDOM implementation uses a random dice roll to allow
newidle_balance attempts according to the success rate. This can be
replaced with a Bresenham accumulator.
Replace the random dice with a Bresenham accumulator. Each step does
the following:
- Accumulate (1 + newidle_ratio) into newidle_window_pos(accumulator).
- If the accumulator reaches 1024, allow the balance attempt and
subtract 1024.
Why Bresenham:
1. It is deterministic and reproducible. For a given ratio, the
balance frequency is exact and not subject to random variance,
which makes the behavior predictable when debugging or tracing.
2. Bresenham spaces the attempts evenly; the random dice can go for
a long stretch without balancing or fire several times in a row,
especially at low ratios.
A quick simulation where the ratio jumps to a random value in
[0, 1023] every 512 calls (20000 windows):
Bresenham random dice
max per-window error 0.5 attempts 41 attempts
The max per-window error is the max difference between the actual
and expected number of attempts within a window; Bresenham's error
is much smaller.
Signed-off-by: Qing Wang <wangqing7171@gmail.com>
---
v1: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260506024455.2799069-1-wangqing7171@gmail.com/
v2: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260602054619.637201-1-wangqing7171@gmail.com/
Removed sched_rnd_state and sched_rng() since they are no longer used.
v3: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20261028034449.2368071-1-wangqing7171@gmail.com/
Corrected the code comments.
v4:
Recovered sched_rnd_state and sched_rng().
include/linux/sched/topology.h | 1 +
kernel/sched/fair.c | 18 +++++++++++++-----
kernel/sched/topology.c | 1 +
3 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
diff --git a/include/linux/sched/topology.h b/include/linux/sched/topology.h
index f96812d71c51..e951d6f3fb0d 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched/topology.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched/topology.h
@@ -113,6 +113,7 @@ struct sched_domain {
unsigned int newidle_call;
unsigned int newidle_success;
unsigned int newidle_ratio;
+ unsigned int newidle_window_pos;
u64 newidle_stamp;
u64 max_newidle_lb_cost;
unsigned long last_decay_max_lb_cost;
diff --git a/kernel/sched/fair.c b/kernel/sched/fair.c
index cfc982205b98..b2661448759c 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/fair.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/fair.c
@@ -14931,16 +14931,24 @@ static int sched_balance_newidle(struct rq *this_rq, struct rq_flags *rf)
if (sched_feat(NI_RANDOM) && sd->newidle_ratio < 1024) {
/*
- * Throw a 1k sided dice; and only run
- * newidle_balance according to the success
- * rate.
+ * Bresenham's line algorithm based accumulator
+ *
+ * At each invocation, the ratio is added to an
+ * accumulator. A balance is triggered whenever
+ * the sum >= 1024.
+ *
+ * This guarantees exactly 'ratio' balance
+ * operations per 1024 calls, distributing them
+ * as uniformly as possible across the interval.
*/
- u32 d1k = sched_rng() % 1024;
weight = 1 + sd->newidle_ratio;
- if (d1k > weight) {
+
+ sd->newidle_window_pos += weight;
+ if (sd->newidle_window_pos < 1024) {
update_newidle_stats(sd, 0);
continue;
}
+ sd->newidle_window_pos -= 1024;
weight = (1024 + weight/2) / weight;
}
diff --git a/kernel/sched/topology.c b/kernel/sched/topology.c
index 919d0fb00bd9..79c477b47510 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/topology.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/topology.c
@@ -2002,6 +2002,7 @@ sd_init(struct sched_domain_topology_level *tl,
.newidle_call = 512,
.newidle_success = 256,
.newidle_ratio = 512,
+ .newidle_window_pos = 0,
.newidle_stamp = now,
.max_newidle_lb_cost = 0,
--
2.34.1
next reply other threads:[~2026-10-30 9:19 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-10-30 9:19 Qing Wang [this message]
2026-10-30 9:46 ` K Prateek Nayak
2026-10-30 9:56 ` Peter Zijlstra
2026-10-30 10:22 ` Qing Wang
2026-10-30 10:39 ` Peter Zijlstra
2026-10-30 10:09 ` Qing Wang
2026-10-30 14:47 ` Kayra Cizmeci
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