[LAU] SteamOS RT kernel

[Patrick Shirkey]

On Sun, December 15, 2013 10:09 am, Dan MacDonald wrote:
> Anyone who has visited a Linux/tech news site today will no doubt be aware
> of the launch of the beta version of Valve's SteamOS. I've not had chance
> to try it myself yet and I won't get the chance to play with it for a few
> days either but its based on a heavily patched Debian Wheezy.
>


For those interested you can download it here:

http://repo.steampowered.com/download/

Requires 4GB RAM

installation instructions:

http://www.redgamingtech.com/how-to-install-steamos-on-virtual-box-virtual-machine/



> What could be of more interest to Linux audio land is that it uses a
> heavily patched 3.10 RT kernel. Although Valve's tweaks won't have been
> made with JACK / LA in mind, I can't help but wonder if their
> modifications will be of benefit to Linux audio?
>

They claim to have been working on unspecified audio latency issues. It
looks like they are shipping with pulseaudio support. So far, I haven't
spotted any contributions from them on the known latency issues that have
been identified in PA. Installing a realtime kernel will not solve the
design issues that need to be addressed to enable PA to provide the same
latency potential as JACK.

SDL has recently gained support for JACK and should start shipping with it
soon so maybe gamers will start using JACK via SDL as they seek to push
their systems to the limits.


> Regardless, I think SteamOS is fantastic news for Linux. This is hot on
> the
> heels of DOOM's 20th birthday. DOOM was of course one of the first
> commercial games to have a Linux port and to later get GPL'd and it was
> the
> game that convinced me (and millions of others, I'm sure) to buy a PC.
>


--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd