Description of problem:

The 4.8.15-rt10 (real-time kernel patchset) contains a patch called

 net: dev: always take qdisc's busylock in __dev_xmit_skb()

Its a one-liner that, its description says:

<quote>
The root-lock is dropped before dev_hard_start_xmit() is invoked and after
setting the __QDISC___STATE_RUNNING bit. If this task is now pushed away
by a task with a higher priority then the task with the higher priority
won't be able to submit packets to the NIC directly instead they will be
enqueued into the Qdisc. The NIC will remain idle until the task(s) with
higher priority leave the CPU and the task with lower priority gets back
and finishes the job.

If we take always the busylock we ensure that the RT task can boost the
low-prio task and submit the packet.
</>

So its only activated for CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT_FULL and should let the RT core algorithms to take a better decision in this case.