[ubuntu-studio-devel] Linux RT from Debian Sid - 3.14

[Kaj Ailomaa]

introductory disclaimer - *DON'T INSTALL LINUX RT ON A MACHINE YOU CARE
ABOUT* (this mail is about testing the Debian rt kernel, imported from
Debian Sid).

I've been considering re-introducing linux-rt to the universe
repository, and had the idea that we could just sync the rt kernel from
Debian.
As a first step, I've built the Debian kernel source in a PPA. I didn't
have to make any changes to the source. It built fine.

The Debian kernel source includes all of their kernel packages,
including the realtime linux kernel image and header (only the even
kernel versions that have a realtime patch, of course), but the kernels
are different from Ubuntu. For one thing, they don't inlcude non-free
firmware. And I haven't added the non-free stuff to the PPA yet. Just
the kernels.

If anyone would like to give the kernel a go, I would suggest to use a
virtual machine for testing first, or a computer that you don't care
about at all, for two reasons:
1. the kernel is from Debian Unstable, and is not to be regarded
production ready
2. We're testing on Ubuntu, not Debian

The PPA with the kernels is ppa:ubuntustudio-kernel/linux-rt-testbuilds
I haven't checked if there may be any conflicts in package naming -
between the Debian and the Ubuntu kernel packages, but you should be
able to install the realtime patched linux kernel. To install it, I
would enable the PPA, install the kernel, disable the PPA to save some
headache.

To insall:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntustudio-kernel/linux-rt-testbuilds
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-image-3.14-1-rt-amd64  # for 64bit machines -
otherwise linux-image-3.14-1-rt-686-pae 

At this point, I just want to make sure the kernel is at all working.
Then, start doing tests to compare it with -lowlatency to see if there
is a point in maintaining linux-rt.

(I'm still preparing specs for this cycle - sorry for taking so long
about it, should be done within this week as I've mentioned before)

/Kaj Ailomaa - Ubuntu Studio Project Lead