[LAU] Live CDs

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

On Thu, 2009-10-08 at 19:35 -1000, david wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 12:26 PM, david <gnome at hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
> >> Jonathan E. Brickman wrote:
> >>>> I'm thinking of trying Gentoo on it, it's supposed to be very very
> >>>> configurable and optimizable. The synth/effects laptop doesn't have a
> >>>> lot of memory and only a 2.8GHz Celeron. (Of course, someone on the list
> >>>> is using an EEEPC 1000 for the same purposes, so maybe the hardware
> >>>> shouldn't matter!)
> >>>>
> >>> AVLinux is my current platform; Sabayon is also very good (very polished
> >>> and reliable), and it is Gentoo-based.  Haven't found a realtime kernel
> >>> for Sabayon or Gentoo yet.
> >> I thought that was one of the Gentoo configuration options? I know
> >> there's someone on the list using Gentoo, maybe they know?
> > 
> > Gentoo real-time kernels are in the pro-audio overlay. Not sure how up
> > to date they are. I think I'm running something like
> > rt-sources-2.6.29-something as the vanilla 2.6.30 kernel.org kernel
> > didn't seem to like my chipset. Go figure....
> 
> Cool, very god, I'll look into adding it to Gentoo when I try installing it.
> 
> > Anyway, they are there, and...small rant... ;-) ;-)
> > 
> > Why in the heck does *anyone* complain about not finding rt-kernels?
> > The source is publicly available and it's very straight forward to
> > build kernel source once you get in the swing. There isn't any magic
> > to building the rt-kernel and truly it's no more difficult than
> > building the vanilla kernel if folks have done that.
> > 
> > end of small rant... ;-) ;-)
> 
> begin response to small rant ...
> 
> I have used Linux for quite a few years now (when did CorelLinux first 
> come out?) and AT&T UNIX before that. I'm a rather technical user. I 
> have NEVER compiled a kernel. *I've never had to.* So your 
> casually-mentioned-phrase "once you get in the swing" glosses over a 
> process that may be well beyond the comfort-zone or capability of many 
> Linux users. (My lovely Linux-using wife would be completely lost from 
> the start.)
> 
> I still don't understand why distros don't routinely include RT kernels 
> as an option in their repositories.

Some do, I think. In the case of Fedora AFAIK the reason is simply lack
of resources to maintain another, different, branch of the kernel. I
imagine it would be similar for other distros. 

-- Fernando