[linux-audio-dev] Other real-time options

[Jack O'Quin]

Fernando Lopez-Lezcano <nando at ccrma.stanford.edu> writes:

> Hmmm, I'm getting really confused, I thought that the realtime lsm was
> the one that was in 'mm (maybe none of them are?). Finally I found the
> followup article on lwn that mentioned this:
>
>   http://lwn.net/Articles/121887/
>
> "...The end result is that the rlimit patch has come back out of -mm..."
>
> Maybe it was put back again afterwards? (this was reported on February
> 10). Hard to follow all that's happening...

Difficult and frustrating.  

The kernel developers have decided not to merge the realtime-lsm,
after all. Instead, they propose an rlimits extension for granting
per-user realtime scheduling privileges.  This does (barely) meet our
minimum needs.

It is inferior to the realtime-lsm solution for several reasons I feel
too tired and discouraged to repeat again here.  (Those who care
should look the discussion up in the LKML archives.)  It all smells
like NIH syndrome to me (Not Invented Here).  Since their solution
won't be available for end-users until all the shells and PAM modules
have been updated and everyone has upgraded to new distributions, I'll
continue supporting the SourceForge realtime-lsm package for another
year or two, as long as we still need it.

I came away dissatisfied with the whole experience.  There are a
number of very good Linux kernel developers, but they tend to get
outshouted by a large crowd of arrogant fools.  Trying to communicate
user requirements to these people is a waste of time.  They are much
too "intelligent" to listen to lesser mortals.

In my former operating system development career, I do not recall any
other kernel development team so totally isolated from end-user
requirements.  Apparently, they rely on the major distribution vendors
for all external requirements input.  We audio developers have no
standing in that process, whatsoever.
-- 
  joq

 "Never try to teach a pig to sing.  
  It wastes your time and annoys the pig."