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

[Paride Legovini]

Hi, adding a couple of extra pointers here (I'm the Debian irqbalance
maintainer). This the Debian bug where the discussion on removing
irqbalance from the kernel Recommends happened:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=926967

In Debian irqbalance is not installed anymore by default since mid-2019
(clearly reflected by popcon: https://qa.debian.org/popcon-
graph.php?packages=irqbalance), and no bug was reported related to it
being missing.

Back in the day I asked upstream their take on irqbalance usefulness
with newer kernels, here is their reply:

https://github.com/Irqbalance/irqbalance/issues/151

** Bug watch added: Debian Bug tracker #926967
   https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=926967

** Bug watch added: github.com/Irqbalance/irqbalance/issues #151
   https://github.com/Irqbalance/irqbalance/issues/151

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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:
  Confirmed
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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