Interrupt latency problems

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <1052570246.27195.6.camel at cf.freebsd-services.com>, Paul Richards wr
ites:
>I'm having real problems with current with heavy disk activity.
>
>When working in X and updating ports which causes a lot of disk activity
>I get *very* poor interactive responses. Keypresses can not appear for
>seconds and mouse movement is very jerky and unresponsive.
>
>I'm wondering if something is holding locks a long time in interrupt
>handlers and causing mouse/keyboard interrupts to be lost?

We have this lock called "Giant" which we're trying to get rid off...

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.