[gentoo-user] What exactly is kernel timer frequency?

[Jure Varlec]

What exactly does 'Timer frequency' (under 'Processor type and features') do? 
Which timer does it control? I'm asking because it seems to have interesting 
effects.

I used to have it set to 1KHz. Yesterday, I tried setting it to 100Hz just to 
see what effects it would have. I didn't notice any impact on responsiveness. 
There is a funny effect with superkaramba though. I noticed it with the 
system monitor first, but I added a clock to see it better. I set the refresh 
interval for the clock to 1 sec, and everytime it refreshes, it seems to 
'skip a beat'. Hard to describe it. When it refreshes to show the current 
number of seconds, it refreshes again a not-sot-tiny fraction of a second 
later and shows the next second. Then, it fails to refresh for almost 2 sec, 
then does it again.
It seems funny because 100Hz frequency is low enough for a human to observe 
(or not, depending on what you're observing) but too high to cause such 
behavior. That means I misunderstand what this setting does, so I'm turning 
to you for an answer.
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