Paul Jackson described a new per-cpuset flag called 'sched_load_balance', "when enabled in a cpuset (the default value) it tells the kernel scheduler that the scheduler should provide the normal load balancing on the CPUs in that cpuset, sometimes moving tasks from one CPU to a second CPU if the second CPU is less loaded and if that task is allowed to run there. When disabled (write '0' to the file) then it tells the kernel scheduler that load balancing is not required for the CPUs in that cpuset." Paul went on to explain why the feature is useful:

"1) It provides a mechanism for real time isolation of some CPUs, and
"2) it can be used to improve performance on systems with many CPUs by supporting configurations in which load balancing is not done across all CPUs at once, but rather only done in several smaller disjoint sets of CPUs."

In response to whether or not he had any objections to merging FUSE [story] into the mainline kernel, Andrew Morton [interview] offered some insight into what new features were slated for the upcoming 2.6.12 kernel. Andrew began, "I was planning on sending FUSE onto Linus in a week or two," going on to add "that and cpusets are the notable features which are 2.6.12 candidates."

Andrew then referred to several other patches currently in his -mm patchset [story], discussing their likelihood of being merged into the mainline kernel. He described crashdump [story]