[linux-audio-user] Kernel tweaking for low latency

[Eric Dantan Rzewnicki]

On Tue, Sep 07, 2004 at 09:30:54PM -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 20:45, Eric Dantan Rzewnicki wrote:
> > Lee Revell wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 08:47, Joe Hartley wrote:
> > >>So my advice for a Linux audio workstation?  Check out the audio distros
> > >>mentioned above, pick one, and configure the system from the ground up
> > >>environment.  And then check out the websites for optimizing IRQs and
> > >>hard drives and turning off CD polling and every other trick compiled
> > >>for setting up a Linux audio workstation.
> > > If you can, it might be better to wait for binaries of the new 2.6 low
> > > I would expect binary kernel packages for your favorite distro to be
> > > available any day now, if they aren't already.
> > So does mean the stock kernel.org 2.6.9 kernel will include these 
> > patches? or that there is now (or will soon be) a standard patch? I see 
> > now that Ingo relased an -R6 patch yesterday and -R7 and -R8 today, not 
> > 3 hours apart.
> There will be a standard patch as soon as the patch is stable.  All
> identified bugs have been fixed.  Since the LKML testers have found all
> the bugs that we can, the next step is for real linux audio users to
> test it.  And there will certainly be more bugs found, but, they can't
> be fixed until they are discovered.
> Basically if you have any important work to do, then stick with your
> current kernel for now.  If you want to be on the bleeding edge and
> don't mind patching your kernel and posting bug reports if it crashes,
> then go for it.

I don't mind patching at all. I want to help by testing and reporting 
any problems. I am sorry to have missed out on the past month. I 
happened to be away on a much needed vacation when it seems a lot of 
interesting audio related kernel stuff was going on. I'm not really into
bleeding, but, I think I have a different perception of pain than most 
and a thicker audio quality skin, so to speak. Plus, I have most of my
audio files backed up on a separate file server, so I'm not worried
about losing anything from a crash.

It doesn't really bother me to have glitches in my audio for a time. 
Perhaps I'm weird, but I find that interesting. Heck, I've been 
collecting sounds with crappy handheld cassette recorders (plural -- I
tend to drop them, good thing the miniDV camcorder has that nice, secure
hand strap) for 8 years. A few digital glitches and dropouts are not 
going to hurt me. No one is paying me for my audio work and I don't have
any deadlines to meet or clients to please. Linux Audio is what I do for
fun when I get home from may day job installing Yet Another Linux, 
Apache, MySQL, Python/Perl/PHP box on Debian Sta(b)le. A big part of the
fun for me is trying to help improve on the platform and tools in 
whatever small way I can. I hope someday to be able to make larger
contributions.

I am sorry for having bothered Paul and Kai and Steve with some issues
that seemed to me to be ecasound, jack, ladspa related when they (well,
at least Paul) have been repeatedly telling people to stick with 2.4.x
if they don't want to deal with those problems. At the same time, I
think ecasound, jack and ladspa all need to be tested on 2.6. From my
meager sysadmin/user perspective there seem to be some issues that
aren't necessarily strictly latency issues. My wife is in grad school,
so I'm going to have more time over the next 8 months or so to stay
consistently involved. I just need to get up to speed on recent
developments.

-Eric Rz.