[PlanetCCRMA] About upgrades, distros and the rt-kernel

ailo ailomaa at msn.com
Wed Jun 17 17:58:35 PDT 2009


On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 00:26 +0000, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 01:44 +0200, ailo wrote:
> > I've installed fc10 on three machines, all of them old.
> > Just migrated from Ubuntu, so I am not used to Yum.
> > I followed the instructions at:
> > 
> >
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/installplanetnine.html
> > 
> > I updated the system. Then Installed some apps + planetccrma-core,
with
> > the rt-kernel. Boot went fine, however logging in caused Xorg to
crash.
> 
> It would help to know what is logged in /var/log/Xorg.0.log when Xorg
> crashes. What type of video card are you using? What drivers?
> 
> > Then, after doing some research, I decided to reinstall, and NOT to
> > upgrade my system before installing the planetccrma-apps and -core.
> > This worked a lot better, however I still had to keep the
fedora-updates
> > checked in 'Software Sources' in order to be able to install the
> > planetccrma packages. This must have meant that I still needed to
> > upgrade a few packages from Fedoras repo in order to be able to
install
> > some of the planetccrma packages.
> 
> That would be correct.
> 
> > I know this is not a Planetccrma issue, however, I feel a bit lost
in
> > this update-jungle.
> > 
> > Keep in mind, that the 'normal' kernel worked just fine at all
times, so
> > this must be a problem connected to the rt-kernel.
> > 
> > I read somewhere that the rt-kernel is always behind the 'normal'
one. 
> > Is there a way to synchronize yum with the kernel-version you want
to
> > use? Would it help stability?
> 
> This is a complicated issue... sorry...
> 
> It could be that the rt kernel is too old for the newest X in Fedora
10,
> in combination with the hardware you have. 
> 
> You could try installing a much newer rt kernel that is part of the
> planetcore-testing repository. For that you need to activate that
> repository by doing (as root):
> 
>   yum install planetccrma-repo-testing
> 
> and then:
> 
>   yum install kernel-rt
> 
> That should give you a much newer (2.6.29+) kernel and it might work. 
> 
> But that might still not be enough. Why? Because the rt kernel does
not
> include _all_ the patches that the Fedora kernel includes,
especifically
> the video card patches and new drivers that Fedora includes with their
> kernels. Why? Those patches don't patch cleanly on top of the rt
patches
> and I don't have time to try to "fix" them... :-(
> 
> If all fails you can keep using the stock Fedora kernels, they are not
> that bad in terms of latency (because the plain vanilla kernel has
> gotten better over time in that respect). 
> 
> -- Fernando
> 
> 
> 
Thanks for the advice about the kernel. I will try that.

About the video drivers: I don't use desktop effects, so I use the
drivers that are automaticly loaded after a fresh install. Different
ones for all three desktops. One Nvidia-card, one Via-onboard-card and I
don't even know about the third.

I actually got the advice about not upgrading from Fedoras
Documentation. That's when I decided to try upgrading as little as
possible.

Have to say I am impressed with the way it works, when it works. Two
pentium 3's and an old AMD sempron used as PD-instruments.
That's also why I can't live without the rt-kernel.




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