Re: [Q]: Linux and real device drivers

Jamie Lokier (lkd@tantalophile.demon.co.uk)
Wed, 22 Sep 1999 14:24:49 +0200

Steve Underwood wrote:
> Sounds like you could make a real improvement to efficiency and cache hits
> here. Just turn off the interrupts, and let the scheduler directly poll the
> hardware instead of some pointless semaphore.
>
> Come on. The interrupts are there for a purpose. You just made them a
> valueless overhead.

For high-speed packet networking, under heavy load, it's possible that
timer-scheduled polling gives less overhead than packet driven
interrupts.

A card that can be told "don't interrupt me for N us after receiving
the next packet, unless you hit the high water mark" would be even better.

-- Jamie

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