[Bug 1833322] Re: Consider removing irqbalance from default install on desktop images

[Steve Langasek]

Belated response, but just for the record, Paride's recounting of upstream's
position in the context of the Debian decision was definitive for me:

On Wed, Jan 10, 2024 at 11:47:56AM -0000, Paride Legovini wrote:
> Back in the day I asked upstream their take on irqbalance usefulness
> with newer kernels, here is their reply:

In effect what this says is that: irqbalance is still useful, but unless
the admin configures it, the policy it provides is not a discernable
improvement over the in-kernel default policy.

Therefore I think it is the right path forward to unseed this and let users
install it in situations where they want to configure it.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1833322

Title:
  Please consider no more having irqbalance enabled by default (per
  image/use-case/TBD)

Status in cloud-images:
  New
Status in Release Notes for Ubuntu:
  In Progress
Status in Ubuntu on IBM z Systems:
  Opinion
Status in irqbalance package in Ubuntu:
  Opinion
Status in ubuntu-meta package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  as per https://github.com/pop-os/default-settings/issues/60

  Distribution (run cat /etc/os-release):

  $ cat /etc/os-release
  NAME="Pop!_OS"
  VERSION="19.04"
  ID=ubuntu
  ID_LIKE=debian
  PRETTY_NAME="Pop!_OS 19.04"
  VERSION_ID="19.04"
  HOME_URL="https://system76.com/pop"
  SUPPORT_URL="http://support.system76.com"
  BUG_REPORT_URL="https://github.com/pop-os/pop/issues"
  PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://system76.com/privacy"
  VERSION_CODENAME=disco
  UBUNTU_CODENAME=disco

  Related Application and/or Package Version (run apt policy $PACKAGE
  NAME):

  $ apt policy irqbalance
  irqbalance:
  Installed: 1.5.0-3ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1.5.0-3ubuntu1
  Version table:
  *** 1.5.0-3ubuntu1 500
  500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco/main amd64 Packages
  100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

  $ apt rdepends irqbalance
  irqbalance
  Reverse Depends:
  Recommends: ubuntu-standard
  gce-compute-image-packages

  Issue/Bug Description:

  as per konkor/cpufreq#48 and
  http://konkor.github.io/cpufreq/faq/#irqbalance-detected

  irqbalance is technically not needed on desktop systems (supposedly it
  is mainly for servers), and may actually reduce performance and power
  savings. It appears to provide benefits only to server environments
  that have relatively-constant loading. If it is truly a server-
  oriented package, then it shouldn't be installed by default on a
  desktop/laptop system and shouldn't be included in desktop OS images.

  Steps to reproduce (if you know):

  This is potentially an issue with all default installs.

  Expected behavior:

  n/a

  Other Notes:

  I can safely remove it via "sudo apt purge irqbalance" without any
  apparent adverse side-effects. If someone is running a situation where
  they need it, then they always have the option of installing it from
  the repositories.

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