KernelNattyVersionAndFlavours
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With nobody committed to maintain a kernel with Ingo's RT patches in, is a kernel with config changes to prefer low latency over e g power consumption the next best thing we can give e g ubuntu-studio users? Are Alessio's lowlatency suggestions a good base for such a flavour? | With nobody committed to maintain a kernel with Ingo's RT patches in, is a kernel with config changes to prefer low latency over e g power consumption the next best thing we can give e g ubuntu-studio users? Are Alessio's lowlatency suggestions a good base for such a flavour? Reference: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kernel-team/2010-February/008713.html |
Launchpad Entry: hardware-kernel-n-version-and-flavours
Created: AndyWhitcroft
Contributors: AndyWhitcroft
Packages affected: linux
Summary
Discuss the mainline baseline version for Natty. Also discuss the current kernel flavours for each architecture. We will also discuss the source branch for these flavours. Finally we will touch on the ports architectures.
Release Note
None.
Kernel Version
Discussions on which mainline kernel base is appropriate for Natty. As Natty is not an LTS we do not require a specific version for alignment upstream. Therefore we will be using the latest version released at kernel freeze.
Flavours
Are we carrying the appropriate flavours?
Current Flavours
Distro
Architecture |
Flavour |
Description |
i386 |
generic |
kernel for desktop machines with less than 4GB of ram |
i386 |
generic-pae |
kernel for desktop machines with more than 4GB of ram |
i386 |
virtual |
kernel for virtual machine use (KVM/EC2) |
amd64 |
generic |
kernel for desktop machines |
amd64 |
server |
kernel for server machines |
amd64 |
virtual |
kernel for virtual machine use (KVM/EC2) |
armel |
versatile |
kernel for ARM versatile (QEMU) |
armel |
omap |
kernel for ARM OMAP-3 hardware |
Ports
Architecture |
Flavour |
Description |
powerpc |
powerpc |
PowerPC |
powerpc |
powerpc-smp |
PowerPC with SMP support |
powerpc |
powerpc64-smp |
PowerPC64 with SMP support |
New Flavours
64bit kernels on 32bit userspace (amd64 on i386)
We have had a number of requests for a 64 bit kernel (amd64) for 32 bit (i386) installs. This gives the user the advantages of running 64 bit in terms of kernel memory handling improvements while maintaining the 32 bit userspace which remains more compatible with 3rd party applications.
rtg - I suspect there will be some caveats to this combination. For example, VmWare may not work, nor will other virtualization programs. 64 bit chroots will likely also not be possible because of packaging resaons, despite the 64 bit kernel.
Low-latency kernel
With nobody committed to maintain a kernel with Ingo's RT patches in, is a kernel with config changes to prefer low latency over e g power consumption the next best thing we can give e g ubuntu-studio users? Are Alessio's lowlatency suggestions a good base for such a flavour? Reference: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kernel-team/2010-February/008713.html
Flavour Source Disposition
In Maverick the master branch produced two ARM flavours, versatile and OMAP3. With Linaro also producing OMAP3 kernels it may be appropriate to switch the source of these kernels over to that kernel; even if we do not it may be appropriate to pull out this into its own branch.
rtg - Given how well the Linaro arm flavour is doing, I'm of the opinion that the only armel flavour that should be produced by the master branch is versatile (for qemu). There is currently a lot of unnecessary duplication between Maverick master(omap3)/ti-omap4/mvl-dove and the linux-linaro kernel package produced by John Rigby.
Ports Architectures
As ia64 and sparc are now officially dead we are only carrying powerpc as a ports architecute. As the source is now carried primarily on the master branch is there any longer any value in treating this differently. Specifically should we be pulling back the ports meta package into the main one to simplify maintenance.
BoF agenda and discussion
- Kernel Version
- Flavours
- review of the current flavours distro and ports
- Proposed new Flavours
- 64bit kernel for 32bit userspace (amd64 kernel on i386)
- lowlatency
- Flavour source disposition
- OMAP3 should this be split out from the master branch
- can we pull this from linaro instead
- OMAP3 should this be split out from the master branch
- PORTS architectures
- should we pull powerpc meta package back into the master repos
Decisions
KernelTeam/Specs/KernelNattyVersionAndFlavours (last edited 2010-12-08 14:42:07 by 212-139-219-66)