[openwrt/openwrt] kernel: add preemption models
LEDE Commits
lede-commits at lists.infradead.org
Sat Jan 24 13:56:19 PST 2026
hauke pushed a commit to openwrt/openwrt.git, branch main:
https://git.openwrt.org/5d720117f7060e789ea4435f044166837af83354
commit 5d720117f7060e789ea4435f044166837af83354
Author: Thomas Richard <thomas.richard at bootlin.com>
AuthorDate: Mon Jan 5 13:46:52 2026 +0100
kernel: add preemption models
Introduce preemption model selection with PREEMPT_NONE as the default.
PREEMPT_NONE is the traditional Linux preemption model and also the best
choice for servers.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Richard <thomas.richard at bootlin.com>
Link: https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/21413
Signed-off-by: Hauke Mehrtens <hauke at hauke-m.de>
---
config/Config-kernel.in | 69 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 69 insertions(+)
diff --git a/config/Config-kernel.in b/config/Config-kernel.in
index 8692063229..870e53206a 100644
--- a/config/Config-kernel.in
+++ b/config/Config-kernel.in
@@ -1492,3 +1492,72 @@ config KERNEL_WERROR
and unusual warnings, or you have some architecture with problems,
you may need to disable this config option in order to
successfully build the kernel.
+
+choice
+ prompt "Preemption Model"
+ default KERNEL_PREEMPT_NONE
+
+config KERNEL_PREEMPT_NONE
+ bool "No Forced Preemption (Server)"
+ help
+ This is the traditional Linux preemption model, geared towards
+ throughput. It will still provide good latencies most of the
+ time, but there are no guarantees and occasional longer delays
+ are possible.
+
+ Select this option if you are building a kernel for a server or
+ scientific/computation system, or if you want to maximize the
+ raw processing power of the kernel, irrespective of scheduling
+ latencies.
+
+config KERNEL_PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY
+ bool "Voluntary Kernel Preemption (Desktop)"
+ help
+ This option reduces the latency of the kernel by adding more
+ "explicit preemption points" to the kernel code. These new
+ preemption points have been selected to reduce the maximum
+ latency of rescheduling, providing faster application reactions,
+ at the cost of slightly lower throughput.
+
+ This allows reaction to interactive events by allowing a
+ low priority process to voluntarily preempt itself even if it
+ is in kernel mode executing a system call. This allows
+ applications to run more 'smoothly' even when the system is
+ under load.
+
+ Select this if you are building a kernel for a desktop system.
+
+config KERNEL_PREEMPT
+ bool "Preemptible Kernel (Low-Latency Desktop)"
+ help
+ This option reduces the latency of the kernel by making
+ all kernel code (that is not executing in a critical section)
+ preemptible. This allows reaction to interactive events by
+ permitting a low priority process to be preempted involuntarily
+ even if it is in kernel mode executing a system call and would
+ otherwise not be about to reach a natural preemption point.
+ This allows applications to run more 'smoothly' even when the
+ system is under load, at the cost of slightly lower throughput
+ and a slight runtime overhead to kernel code.
+
+ Select this if you are building a kernel for a desktop or
+ embedded system with latency requirements in the milliseconds
+ range.
+
+config KERNEL_PREEMPT_RT
+ bool "Fully Preemptible Kernel (Real-Time)"
+ depends on (x86_64 || aarch64 || riscv64)
+ help
+ This option turns the kernel into a real-time kernel by replacing
+ various locking primitives (spinlocks, rwlocks, etc.) with
+ preemptible priority-inheritance aware variants, enforcing
+ interrupt threading and introducing mechanisms to break up long
+ non-preemptible sections. This makes the kernel, except for very
+ low level and critical code paths (entry code, scheduler, low
+ level interrupt handling) fully preemptible and brings most
+ execution contexts under scheduler control.
+
+ Select this if you are building a kernel for systems which
+ require real-time guarantees.
+
+endchoice
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