From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.comp.tex.context/6004 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Antos Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.context Subject: Re: New context version... Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 15:58:31 +0100 Sender: owner-ntg-context@let.uu.nl Message-ID: <20011106155831.A1598@bart.math.muni.cz> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20011105165022.031f67d0@server-1> <200111051446.fA5Ek3p00434@sol.cs.uni-dortmund.de> <5.1.0.14.1.20011105165022.031f67d0@server-1> <5.1.0.14.1.20011106103253.036b0fa8@server-1> <20011106150524.2ac086b4.taco@elvenkind.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035396556 6427 80.91.224.250 (23 Oct 2002 18:09:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 18:09:16 +0000 (UTC) Original-To: NTG ConTeXt Mailing List In-Reply-To: <20011106150524.2ac086b4.taco@elvenkind.com>; from taco@elvenkind.com on Tue, Nov 06, 2001 at 03:05:24PM +0100 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.context:6004 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tex.context:6004 On Tue, Nov 06, 2001 at 03:05:24PM +0100, Taco Hoekwater wrote: > > Hi Hans, > > This is unrelated. I got curious and did some searching on the web. The > kapm-idled is a kernel thread that executes the HLT instruction if the kernel > has nothing better to do. Reason (sort of correct): the chip consumes less > power when executing HLT than when doing nothing ;) Hi, Taco was faster than me and absolutelly correct. The power saving is not the only reason, each Un*x has a process with the lowest possible priority which runs when there is nothing to do. Some kind of that behaviour occurs in all OSs. One possibility is to execute HLT, another is an infinite loop. HLT is prefered as it saves energy and makes CPU cooler. D.A.