[ltp] Re: So what _is_ advantage of 2.6 kernel on a Thinkpad?

[Tod Harter]

I have to agree. Overall the 2.6 kernel is NOT as stable as a good 
2.4.20+ with whatever patches you need.I've found a lot of problems, and 
they get worse when you turn on preemption. Audio and Video playback, 
despite the theoretical promise of better scheduling and preemption seem 
to be MUCH inferior. I can't even get XMMS to play an mp3 without 
breaking up every time there is the slightest activity on the desktop, 
and thats on a very high-end workstation, on the A20p its worse. Even 
just general compute-intensive stuff like compiling a kernel seems to be 
significantly slower on 2.6, so much for all the vaunted efficiency 
improvements. Maybe in 6 months or so they'll have 2.6 tweaked up to 
where it starts to show some advantages over 2.4, and maybe it already 
will for certain types of loads, but I think I'm going back to 2.4.x 
series on the desktop for a while...


Steve Harris wrote:

>On Mon, Mar 22, 2004 at 04:38:45 +1100, Daniel Pittman wrote:
>  
>
>>The biggest improvement that 2.6 has over 2.4, for me[1], is that it
>>polishes off a few "in-progress" bits of 2.4.  For example, the input
>>layer is nice and useful in 2.6, while it is pretty half-done in 2.4.
>>    
>>
>
>If you work with audio, the scheduler in 2.6 is much more realtime friendly
>that the one in 2.4 without a load of patches. I dont think 2.6 is as good
>as 2.4 + all the patches yet, but its much less hastle :)
>
>- Steve
>  
>


-- 
Tod Harter
Principal Developer
TradeDesk Software
voice: 802 655 2777
tharter@giantelectronicbrain.com