linux-imx

sched: Set an initial value of runnable avg for new forked task

We need to initialize the se.avg.{decay_count, load_avg_contrib} for a
new forked task. Otherwise random values of above variables cause a
mess when a new task is enqueued:

    enqueue_task_fair
        enqueue_entity
            enqueue_entity_load_avg

and make fork balancing imbalance due to incorrect load_avg_contrib.

Further more, Morten Rasmussen notice some tasks were not launched at
once after created. So Paul and Peter suggest giving a start value for
new task runnable avg time same as sched_slice().

PeterZ said:

> So the 'problem' is that our running avg is a 'floating' average; ie. it
> decays with time. Now we have to guess about the future of our newly
> spawned task -- something that is nigh impossible seeing these CPU
> vendors keep refusing to implement the crystal ball instruction.
>
> So there's two asymptotic cases we want to deal well with; 1) the case
> where the newly spawned program will be 'nearly' idle for its lifetime;
> and 2) the case where its cpu-bound.
>
> Since we have to guess, we'll go for worst case and assume its
> cpu-bound; now we don't want to make the avg so heavy adjusting to the
> near-idle case takes forever. We want to be able to quickly adjust and
> lower our running avg.
>
> Now we also don't want to make our avg too light, such that it gets
> decremented just for the new task not having had a chance to run yet --
> even if when it would run, it would be more cpu-bound than not.
>
> So what we do is we make the initial avg of the same duration as that we
> guess it takes to run each task on the system at least once -- aka
> sched_slice().
>
> Of course we can defeat this with wakeup/fork bombs, but in the 'normal'
> case it should be good enough.

Paul also contributed most of the code comments in this commit.

Signed-off-by: Alex Shi <alex.shi@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Gu Zheng <guz.fnst@cn.fujitsu.com>
Reviewed-by: Paul Turner <pjt@google.com>
[peterz; added explanation of sched_slice() usage]
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1371694737-29336-4-git-send-email-alex.shi@intel.com
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>