[linux-audio-dev] Linux 2.6 not a latency panacea?

Joshua Haberman joshua at haberman.com
Wed Aug 13 18:49:01 UTC 2003


I am distressed.  It was my understanding that the 2.5/2.6 kernel branch 
was undergoing significant scheduler and latency work, and that 2.6 
would eliminate the kernel from the list of obstacles of low-latency on 
Linux.  It will have the preemptable kernel patch, the new scheduler, 
and all of Ingo Molnar's low-latency work.  Claims were being thrown 
around that 2.6 would be the lowest-latency operating system on the planet.

So how is it that we're in the 2.6.0-test series and people are 
complaining about audio skipping in **XMMS**, which uses three second 
buffers by default??  If people are getting skips from high-latency 
playback, what hope is there for low-latency audio?  A series of patches 
are coming from both Ingo and Con Kolivas attempting to address this, 
but the fact they are just now throwing around potential solutions 
erodes at my faith that they really understand the problem or how to 
solve it.

Is 2.6.x going to be suitable for low-latency (or even reliable 
high-latency) audio?  Or is it going to be more of the same: patching 
the kernel, tweaking parameters, reading magical incantations, and 
hoping for the best?

Reassure me please!

Josh




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