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

[Christian Ehrhardt ]

# Integration and maintenance

Despite some saying it is for the past only, it is regularly updated
and has multiple releases per year throughout all the time [4]. Those
updates flow well into Debian and Ubuntu - so it is not a classic "old
and outdated" case. And while not much changes in those updates, it means
it still learns like about thermal events in 1.9.1 or about isolcpus in 1.0.9.
I'm not saying it is super modern doing it all, but it gets updates.

Currently this is seeded in ubuntu-standard [1], which is what makes it
default installed everywhere. But it is intentionally only a recommends,
so the set of people that want to remove it can do so.

It was added a long time ago [3] back when multi-core was a rare thing
at least for Desktop systems. This was based on a discussion [5] and was
related to the kernel [6] actively delegating this to userspace. Debian
did a similar change a bit later [17] for the same reasons.
But again this was the time of single-core being common.


[1]: https://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-core-dev/ubuntu-seeds/+git/platform/tree/standard?h=noble#n19
[3]: https://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-core-dev/ubuntu-seeds/+git/platform/commit/?h=noble&id=dcd02266953547e11221979eb17eb740a76a62b5
[4]: https://github.com/Irqbalance/irqbalance/tags
[5]: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2010-January/029939.html
[6]: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=8b8e8c1bf7275eca859fe551dfa484134eaf013b
[17]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=577788


** Bug watch added: github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues #3243
   https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/3243

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to ubuntu-meta in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1833322

Title:
  Consider removing irqbalance from default install on desktop images

Status in irqbalance package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in ubuntu-meta package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

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.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/irqbalance/+bug/1833322/+subscriptions