Tickless operation
A related topic is the tickles, or NOHZ, option. If the system is truly idle, the most likely source of interruptions will be the system timer, which is programmed to generate a regular time tick at a rate of HZ per second, where HZ is typically 100. Historically, Linux uses the timer tick as the main time base for measuring time-outs.
And yet it is plainly wasteful to wake the CPU up to process a timer interruption if no timer events are registered for that particular moment. The dynamic tick kernel configuration option, CONFIG_NO_HZ, looks at the timer queue at the end of the timer processing routine and schedules the next interruption at the time of the next event, avoiding unnecessary wake-ups and allowing the CPU to ...
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