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

[Christian Ehrhardt ]

I subscribed a few people directly to get their input.

@Steve
I've subscribed you after trying to find, refer and summarize all of the past to allow you and anyone else to read into this in one go. I think I'll need your input as Architect and as participant of these discussions right from when they started 14 years ago.

@Phil/@John
Some past discussions, especially the backpedaling of Debian referred to virtual environments and/or large cloud providers. Is irqbalance anything you got asked to disable (or keep) for their environment?
No need to share names, but reasoning or data points would be helpful :-)

@Dimitri
Is there a more clear "this is what userspace should do in regard to this in 2024" form the kernel? I couldn#t find it, but maybe you know or know who'd know ...

@Sebastien
Since most problems reported have been around Desktops (to be fair, that could be an coincidence because that is where people do more experiments and have more diverse special cases). But I think it is fair to ask you if requests or discussion like the above have come up towards Desktop that are worth to refer here?


Maybe one of you has more details that help to make the decision more clear and easy.
Or a gut feeling that is even stronger than mine, strong enough even to pick one of the options?

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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.

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