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Robert Love Explains Variable HZ

Posted by timothy on from the powers-of-ten dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Robert Love, author of the kernel preemption patch for Linux, has backported a new performancing boosting patch from the 2.5 development kernel to the 2.4 stable kernel. This patch allows one to tune the frequency of the timer interrupt, defined in 2.4 as "HZ=100". Robert explains 'The timer interrupt is at the heart of the system. Everything lives and dies based on it. Its period is basically the granularity of the system: timers hit on 10ms intervals, timeslices come due at 10ms intervals, etc.' The 2.5 kernel has bumped the HZ value up to 1000, boosting performance."

1 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Finally... by ActiveSX · · Score: 5, Funny

    An overclockable operating system. You wouldn't believe how long I've waited for this. Now where do I get a software heatsink?