[LAU] XanMod kernel

Paul Davis paul at linuxaudiosystems.com
Thu Jun 4 15:09:10 CEST 2020


On Thu, Jun 4, 2020 at 3:26 AM <nik at parkellipsen.de> wrote:

> Hmm I never felt any advantage using RT kernels, either, at least in the
> recent
> years, so I wonder if they still have any advantage in 2020 ? And that's
> not a rhetorical
> question, I really wonder what contemporary use cases for RT kernels in
> the audio world are.
>
> I feel like these kernel-tuning approaches date back to times when desktop
> responsiveness
> etc. were much more serious issues. Might be wrong here, of course.
>

This is wrong. The behavior of a "normal", "low latency" and "preempt-RT"
kernel are all different, and for realtime audio work, the correct behavior
is only going to happen with a "preempt-RT" kernel.

However ...

The behavior of the normal and "low latency" kernels have changed over the
years too, and on *some* systems (from a hardware perspective), they will
function similarly enough to a "preempt-RT" kernel that a realtime audio
workflow will be just fine. In addition, the "behavior" gap between a
"preempt-RT" kernel and a normal kernel will be less and less apparent as
the latency settings (buffer/period size) become more relaxed (i.e. grow
larger).

How do you know which systems this is true for? You just have to try it. It
is a complicated mixture of many different aspects of the hardware. There's
an overview of the kinds of things that can contribute to the need for a
"preempt-RT" kernel here:

https://manual.ardour.org/setting-up-your-system/the-right-computer-system-for-digital-audio/

> <https://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user>
>
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