Attached patch implements sysctl/procfs scheduler tunables, knobs which let one play with all of the important scheduler variables: sched.starvation_limit = 2000 sched.max_sleep_avg = 2000 sched.interactive_delta = 2 sched.prio_bonus_ratio = 25 sched.exit_weight = 3 sched.parent_penalty = 100 sched.child_penalty = 95 sched.min_timeslice = 10 sched.max_timeslice = 300 Also in /proc/sys/sched/ Which may help in tuning and debugging the scheduler. I believe Ingo did something similar to this ages ago, so original credit for the idea goes to him. Note the values are not checked and you can probably cause a divide-by-zero somewhere, but only root can write these. See Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt for more information