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

[Christian Ehrhardt ]

Hi Paride

> 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

Thanks for this and the other extra pointers.
The Debian bug was referenced before, AFAIC it is mostly around
a) the kernel got smarter in many cases (true)
b) bad in virtual environments (we already removed it from those)

And in that discussion the upstream comments (it is good to see that
they are still convinced of their code) revolved around:
c) There should be no conflict with running irqbalance (with the new kernel)
d) The kernel policy is driver centric (irqbalance has a full picture)

Both - as I read them - are more arguments to keep it than to remove.
But as all other, not with enough data to make it a clear yes/no.

As I said much earlier in this case, I feel this is system and workload
dependent and hence there will never be a clear generic yes/no.
The best we can achieve is finding sets (like images used in virtual
environments - or as suggested desktop systems) and drop it being the
default there.

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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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