[LAU] OS for realtime operation

[Jeremy Jongepier]

On 01/09/2012 03:24 PM, Moshe Werner wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> after many years of studio work using the openSuse distro with the
> kernel-rt from Jan Engelhard it seems that he no longer continues his great
> work on rt kernels.
> Being more on the recording engineer side of things and not a Linux expert
> (user yes, expert no) I really fret at the thought of patching and
> compiling my own kernel package.
>
> I would like to hear your opinions on what distro is solid for audio work
> and has a reliable rt kernel.
> Also I would appreciate if you could explain the degree of difficulty and
> learning curve of the specific distro.
>
> My system:
> Intel i7 950
> Gigabyte motherboard
> 6 Gb ram
> Rme HDSP 9652 audio interface
>
> Appreciate your answers.
>
> Moshe
>
> P.S. I tried to use Ubuntu on the same machine I use openSuse 11.2 on and
> got pretty bad results regarding latency and x runs on jack 2.
>

Hello Moshe,

Ubuntu 10.04 here with the Tango Studio real-time kernel. Latency-wise I 
can go as low as the soundcard allows. If I have any xruns that 
shouldn't be there I search just as long until it's solved. I still 
prefer Ubuntu because it is one of the biggest distro's and that comes 
with some advantages. I'm also very fond of the PPA system (Personal 
Package Archives) and that Ubuntu is akin of Debian. I've used Fedora 
and Mandriva (both RPM based) for a long time but prefer the Debian way 
for a lot of things (packaging, filesystem layout). Also Ubuntu LTS 
releases just work, at least, in my experience. And they're stable, 
especially after the first point release (10.04 is at 10.04.3 now).
I'm also dabbling with Arch at the moment. I like it, it was a lot like 
coming home but Arch also has some major drawbacks. The packaging system 
is a huge security flaw, especially when you use AUR. Anyone can upload 
anything (this is possible with Ubuntu PPA's too but it's a lot harder). 
Other than that AUR is simply amazing, compared to Debian/Ubuntu 
packaging is a breeze. Other thing are the rough edges. Ubuntu is 
polished, especially when it comes to the desktop experience. I've come 
to appreciate that through the years so I had a rough time getting font 
rendering right for instance, and it still doesn't look and feel like on 
my Ubuntu install. But Arch does have its pros. It's a rolling release 
so you only have to install it once and then you're good to go for years 
to come. This will also ensure that you're always running a pretty up to 
date system. Which could also be a disadvantage. I'm a Jack1 user for 
instance but also a seq24 user and seq24 doesn't work with Jack 
transport with versions > 0.118.x. So 0.121.x that is in Arch at the 
moment doesn't fly for me. The biggest pros for me are the 
configurability and that everything is so well documented. I LOVE 
opening a terminal on Arch and configure stuff that way because it's so 
easy and fun.
I'm not very fond of specialized multimedia/audio distro's. I want to 
configure a system the way I want, most of the distro's do things a 
different way or just wrong in my opinion. Also most of these distro's 
are driven by incredibly small communities or simply just one person. 
Continuity is not assured. I do check them every now and then and cherry 
pick the good stuff and integrate it on my own system. If I'd have to 
choose a multimedia distro though I would most certainly choose AVLinux, 
closely followed by Tango Studio. GMaq and Jof are simply very 
knowledgable guys and listen well to what users have to say.
In your case I think Arch might be a bit too much expert. If you're 
coming from OpenSuSE you might want to try Fedora with the CCRMA repo or 
give Ubuntu another try, it is a Linux flavour after all so Jack should 
be able to run with acceptable latencies. Or stick with OpenSuSE and 
hope someone is willing to take over maintaining a real-time kernel.

Best,

Jeremy