Testing The Different Ubuntu 10.04 Kernels

[Fer Servadu]

There is also a Realtime (RT) kernel available in Ubuntu Lucid, but it is currently based on the older Linux 2.6.31 kernel. We were unable to test out this real-time kernel due to DRM problems with the Linux 2.6.31 kernel and our newer ATI Radeon graphics card.

Michael, can you give a little more information this issue? Was it an Ubuntu-specific problem or is there a more general conflict?

I'm currently running on 2.6.29.6-rt24 with an HD4670 and I've been thinking of upgrading at some point this year to a newer kernel (.31 or .33), so I'm curious if there are rough waters ahead for me.

[Veerappan]

Michael, can you give a little more information this issue? Was it an Ubuntu-specific problem or is there a more general conflict?

I'm currently running on 2.6.29.6-rt24 with an HD4670 and I've been thinking of upgrading at some point this year to a newer kernel (.31 or .33), so I'm curious if there are rough waters ahead for me.

I don't know the specifics of the issue that he ran into, but my guess is that the libdrm/mesa/xorg stack that is installed in Lucid requires a minimum of the kernel DRM from 2.6.33 (which has been backported to Ubuntu's 2.6.32 kernels). With enough work, he could probably either downgrade libdrm/mesa/xorg or something, but it'd be more work than just booting into a different kernel, and the results wouldn't be directly comparable.

In your case, as long as you do a full upgrade of your distribution to the current release, you should be fine...

[Veerappan]

In your case, as long as you do a full upgrade of your distribution to the current release, you should be fine...

Sorry, I didn't see that you had the -rt tag at the end of your installed kernel... in that case, you might get stuck with UMS (3D might work, X might be cranky, not sure), and not KMS, and I'm not sure what other issues you'll run into. If you don't need the real-time kernel, it's an easy upgrade (just switch to another kernel and go), otherwise it might be a bit trickier.

[garytr24]

They don't have realtime patches for .32, only 31 and 33.

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/

[mendieta]

Wow! Am I the only one surprised of how much better performance is with the 2.6.32 mainline? I will try it on my Lucid later on ... (I have been trying 2.6.33 or 2.6.34 mainline kernels, thinking that 2.6.32 made no sense to try, since the Ubuntu kernels are patched versions of it)

Awesome tests, Michael!

[Fer Servadu]

Sorry, I didn't see that you had the -rt tag at the end of your installed kernel... in that case, you might get stuck with UMS (3D might work, X might be cranky, not sure), and not KMS, and I'm not sure what other issues you'll run into. If you don't need the real-time kernel, it's an easy upgrade (just switch to another kernel and go), otherwise it might be a bit trickier.

Thanks, Veerappan.

KMS isn't really important to me, so I'm not too concerned on that count. I use this machine mainly for audio production (hence the rt kernel), so 3D isn't exactly critical, either. But some occasional random gaming violence is good for the soul, so having 3D working properly would be a nice plus.

[dargllun]

Does anyone know a way to use the 2.6.32 lucid kernel in karmic? I appears they bump the binutils dependencies (which in turn requires a news libc) so one can't use those packages in karmic as such.

In addition, the mainline-ppa seems kinda stuck, there's still no 2.6.33.1 and there are new 2.6.32.*-lucid builds, but with errors.

What I'm really after is a reasonably maintainted kernel with as much latest KMS technology built into it while not having to compile it myself :-) So far I'm using 2.6.33 from the mainline-ppa, but I felt it would be nice to use the lucid kernel.

[garytr24]

Does anyone know a way to use the 2.6.32 lucid kernel in karmic? I appears they bump the binutils dependencies (which in turn requires a news libc) so one can't use those packages in karmic as such.

In addition, the mainline-ppa seems kinda stuck, there's still no 2.6.33.1 and there are new 2.6.32.*-lucid builds, but with errors.

What I'm really after is a reasonably maintainted kernel with as much latest KMS technology built into it while not having to compile it myself :-) So far I'm using 2.6.33 from the mainline-ppa, but I felt it would be nice to use the lucid kernel.

Give liquorix a try, it's a prebuilt zen-kernel, has some fancy schmancy stuff like BF scheduler.

http://liquorix.net/
http://liquorix.net/debian/pool/main...-liquorix-2.6/

[speculatrix]

It would be nice to run a java benchmark on these platforms too, using the same latest release, as that would be very useful.

thanks
Paul

[arzeth]

My config: Intel Core i3-330M, 3GB RAM DDR3, / - ext4, /home - ext3, ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 512MB, fglrx, Ubuntu 10.04 RC (or maybe final), 2.6.32-21-generic.
I have 90FPS both Quake III Arena (with 8 bots, Wine 1.1.43) and OpenArena (no bots)