Re: [LAU] rt kernels

From: Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf@email-addr-hidden-dsl.net>
Date: Thu Jun 09 2011 - 14:23:40 EEST

On Thu, 2011-06-09 at 00:39 -1000, david wrote:
> Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> > On Wed, 2011-06-08 at 22:02 -1000, david wrote:
> >> Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:
> >>> On 06/07/2011 10:27 AM, david wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> The last couple of Ubuntu releases have not included RT kernels because
> >>>> Ubuntu thinks no one needs one.
> >>> more likely, the latest ubuntu releases were based on kernels newer than
> >>> the latest available rt tree, which creates a very complicated situation
> >>> for distro maintainers.
> >>>
> >>> with 2.6.39, most of the former rt patchset is now in mainline, and the
> >>> big kernel lock is gone for good. that means the situation should
> >>> improve a lot, and ease the burdon on maintainers of low-latency
> >>> optimized packages.
> >> Well, my experience with non-RT kernels is that on my hardware, they are
> >> not sufficient for real audio use. I just upgraded my desktop machine to
> >> 2.6.39, will see how it goes. Audio works, didn't stress it much. Of
> >> course, for some reason, it has decided that my 17" 1280x1024 monitor
> >> only runs 1024x768 at 60hz ... sigh.
> >
> > I experienced the same issues regarding to the resolution and the 60 Hz
> > stroboscope (and a non working mouse wheel for my PS/2 mouse, slow down
> > Internet for PPPoE etc.) with current debianoid Linux. They drop old
> > hardware, even if they claim not to do.
>
> I don't blame Debian for it (if Xorg dropped support for older hardware,
> that's their decision, not Debian's.) But the resolution problem showed
> up after I upgraded to 2.6.39 only (no Xorg upgrade involved at that point).
>
> > Regarding to the monitor, I downgraded X and then I got back the wanted
> > 1152x864@90Hz. The monitor can do better than 90 Hz, debianoid Linux for
> > my setup can't anymore, but I guess there's no difference between 90 Hz
> > and > 90 Hz.
> >
> > I'm using xserver-xorg-video-nv 1:2.1.17-3 + depending X packages, it's
> > from Debian stable, while anything else should be from Debian testing.
> > For Debian testing there's no nv driver anymore and the nouveau doesn't
> > work on my machine, when using a kernel-rt.
>
> The 2.6.39 kernel I got from Aptosid isn't an RT kernel.
>
> > Perhaps a downgrade will solve the issue on your machine too. 60 Hz
> > vertically is unhealthy.
>
> Yup bugs my eyes.

And your brain ;).
I'm not sure if it's a myth or true, it's said that stroboscope effects
can cause epileptic shocks even for averaged people. (Hopefully this
won't cause a discussion as the one about 'time'. ;)
A vertically frequency of 60 Hz won't cause an epileptic shock, but at
least effect your well-being.
Anyway, stroboscope effects are used as weapons.
At 60 Hz I would use a dark theme, unfortunately dark themes have
disadvantages, regarding to reflections and for the desktop they usually
have side effects, such as invisible fonts, scroll bars etc.. Ardour's
dark seem IMO is good.

I wonder how good modern displays are and if they should be able to
replace monitors for every usage, how expensive those displays are.

The artists I know (among others, some famous comic drawers), having
brand new 'common' displays, use their old monitors again, because the
displays are unusable for graphics, excepted of the video tablets they
additionally use. Those video tablets are very expensive and the usage
is different to the usage of a display or monitor. Perhaps very
expensive displays are able to replace a monitor.

For DAW IMO even a cheap display at all events is the better choice, I
guess ... less electric smog? Space-saving!

I'm unsure if I should switch from monitor to display, as I'm not
drawing for print media, perfect colours aren't that important for me.
But when playing a single coil guitar, a display might be better.

> My monitor was doing 1280x10124 @ 87HZ before the
> kernel upgrade ... When I checked, the Nouveau driver isn't even
> installed on the machine. I saw some bug reports for the Nouveau driver
> at debian.org saying something about the kernel preventing the driver
> from getting EDIT info from the monitor, so the driver assumes a save
> 1024x768x60hz. Sigh.
>
> I can use video=1280x1024 on the kernel command line to get that
> resolution, but it's still using 60hz refresh.
>
> So I set my previous kernel to be GRUBs default and will only select
> 2.6.39 when I need to.
>

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Received on Thu Jun 9 16:15:02 2011

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