[PlanetCCRMA] Roadmap to 2.6 kernel?

[Fernando Pablo Lopez-Lezcano]

> what is the roadmap to 2.6 kernel? As it has ALSA integrates one would expect 
> it to be an interesting alternative to get rid of all the installation trouble.

The (perhaps) big difference will be, for Planet CCRMA, when Fedora Core
2 ships. That will include 2.6 as the default kernel and ALSA as the
sound driver. If you add to that the "realtime" kernel module written by
Jack O'Quin you will have a system that has ALSA configured (or not :-)
out of the box and can run Jack with realtime scheduling as a non-root
user. I don't know if the current test builds of 2.6 for FC2 have the
preemptible kernel option enabled or not, that would make a difference
for latency. Hopefully, in time, it will not be necessary for me to roll
specialized kernels... (I'm keeping my fingers crossed in that respect).

But I expect there will be configuration issues anyway. I don't think,
for example, that there will be a multiple card ALSA configurator in
FC2. When there was a request for "features" in one of the Fedora lists
I'm subscribed to, I mentioned multiple soundcard configuration software
but there were zero "yes, me too" responses. Other issues had obviously
more "resonance" with the members of the list.  

> Nando, could you elaborate a bit on the pros and cons for going to 2.6, please?

You mean for Planet CCRMA? Right now? Hard to say as I have not used 2.6
extensively (just one build I did a while ago). From what I have heard
it is not yet to the level of latency that 2.4+lowlat+preempt is at
today, although it is very usable (again, not personal experience).
Comments seem to indicate is "feels" faster than 2.4.x, and that's a
good sign. 

I'd love to do a test 2.6 kernel... I'be been meaning to take a look at
what's involved for a while... But the it is good that I'm behind the
bleeding edge, you don't want to switch too soon :-)

-- Fernando