Sorry. I should have checked. The system call name is "times()", and it's
one of the very few system calls that return time in "clock ticks" instead
of the much saner and generic "struct timeval" that gives the time in a
timer-independent format.
Anyway, the point being that you only need to make sure that "times()"
(and any other system call I've forgotten about that has the same
interface - search for "clock_t" to see - that's why I had the name
confused) always returns its values as if the clock was running at 100 Hz.
And the kernel internally can use a variable clock-rate for all we care.
The thing is, user programs really should not need to worry about kernel
internal issues. The kernel should do the conversion for them (as it
happens, the current "conversion" is a 1:1 thing, and as such the kernel
doesn't need to do anything. But if Albert wants to have his clock tick at
a kilohertz, he only needs to add a few "/10" to his kernel and he'll be
all set).
A kernel that exports internal knowledge is a BAD kernel. And I will
continue to refuse to make bad decisions like a sysctl() interface to HZ.
Linus
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