Arch Linux

banana989

Member

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 60

Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

Howdy- I have been an arch user for years now and I have always run the vanilla kernel. I recently saw a post on kerneltrap (via lXer) about the CK patch set. So ... I've seen CK and Beyond in the kernel list for quite awhile.

My question: Is it worth it to migrate to CK or Beyond for a performance increase? I usually only use my computer for web development (rails) , random pet project development, web browsing, and audio/video. What I would primarily look for is increased load time for my applications and more responsive Gnome.

Btw- the only performance work I have done is to make sure I am running light on services and use prelink ... anything else I could check out?

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,019

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

For a desktop use ck kernel is a very good choice. Newest ck (2.6.21-ck; not in Arch's repo yet) sports a brand new cpu scheduler, which seems to be an even bigger improvement over older ck releases.

Beyond is just ck with some more patches, like reiser4, suspend2 or gensplash.

dolby

Member

From: 1992

Registered: 2006-08-08

Posts: 1,581

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

beyond at this very point is miscontinued (announced by iphitus today in arch dev list). until and if someone takes over there wont be any updates to the current patchset

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There shouldn't be any reason to learn more editor types than emacs or vi -- mg (1)
[You learn that sarcasm does not often work well in international forums.  That is why we avoid it. -- ewaller (arch linux forum moderator)

banana989

Member

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 60

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

So using CK I might actually see some improvements ?

tagawa

Member

From: Japan

Registered: 2007-04-04

Posts: 5

Website

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

It's worth a try but I noticed a drop in performance when I tried it (old Thinkpad 600E, PIII 600Mhz 384MB RAM).  Maybe it's more suited to desktops or to modern machines.

jotapesan

Member

From: chile

Registered: 2006-05-30

Posts: 27

Website

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

oh no! the kernel beyond is over! there are many people that uses that kernel.
will be possible add the fbsplash path to ck?

.:B:.

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2006-11-26

Posts: 5,819

Website

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

For a desktop use ck kernel is a very good choice. Newest ck (2.6.21-ck; not in Arch's repo yet) sports a brand new cpu scheduler, which seems to be an even bigger improvement over older ck releases.

Con Kolivas has not written a 'brand new' CPU scheduler . His scheduler has been around for quite some time. Ingo Molnar has written a new scheduler, borrowing some of Con's ideas .

oh no! the kernel beyond is over! there are many people that uses that kernel.
will be possible add the fbsplash path to ck?

If you want 'optimal' performance there's no hassle in building your own kernel. Just strip out the kernel PKGBUILD (any will do as a starting point). And put in the patches you want yourself. It's an excellent occasion to take a close look to C too .

I build my own kernel using ck, reiser4, and some custom patches (amongst which grsecurity for my server install). The hard work goes in the PKGBUILD, but once that's done, it's just rearranging patches, updating checksums in the script, checking the config if you need to change anything, and off you go .

Last edited by B (2007-05-08 06:22:58)

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ekerazha

Member

Registered: 2007-02-27

Posts: 290

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

beyond at this very point is miscontinued (announced by iphitus today in arch dev list). until and if someone takes over there wont be any updates to the current patchset

The lack of updates for -beyond is one of the reasons because I'm planning a new patchset: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=32371

ekerazha

Member

Registered: 2007-02-27

Posts: 290

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

oh no! the kernel beyond is over! there are many people that uses that kernel.
will be possible add the fbsplash path to ck?

Have you tried Splashy?

ekerazha

Member

Registered: 2007-02-27

Posts: 290

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

However... I think the current situation of Arch kernels is bad:

- Vanilla (it seems ok).
- -ck (*not* updated: it should be updated to 2.6.21)
- -suspend2 (*not* updated: it should be updated at least to 2.6.20 because there's a stable patch for 2.6.20).
- -beyond (discontinued?)

Last edited by ekerazha (2007-05-08 08:30:00)

patroclo7

Member

From: Bassano del Grappa, ITALY

Registered: 2006-01-11

Posts: 915

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

As you can see in another post, at least suspend2 will be updated soon. I guess that, from the point of view of devs, the external modules require a lot of additional time and effort. May be that a realistic choice would be to declare that, if a user wants to use an alternative kernel (such as ck, suspend2 and upcoming competitors), he has to compile external modules himself. This would block the growth of many different packages for any module-kernel couple, and would alleviate the effort from the side of devs.

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Mortuus in anima, curam gero cutis

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,019

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

B, SD has been written from a scratch in the last few months, although indeed based on ideas from old staircase. Then Ingo, picking up the fairness idea introduced by SD, stepped in with his CFS.

2.6.21-ck is the first stable ck release featuring SD instead of old staircase.

Last edited by lucke (2007-05-08 09:59:23)

dolby

Member

From: 1992

Registered: 2006-08-08

Posts: 1,581

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

- -ck (*not* updated: it should be updated to 2.6.21)

tomk doesnt have a broadband connection atm so its prolly gonna be a while unless some else builds it

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There shouldn't be any reason to learn more editor types than emacs or vi -- mg (1)
[You learn that sarcasm does not often work well in international forums.  That is why we avoid it. -- ewaller (arch linux forum moderator)

cpu

Member

Registered: 2007-02-22

Posts: 68

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

So that's the problem with 2.6.21-ck - someone else should build this kernel? Maybe tomk can provide PKGBUILD and someone will build this and send to extra rapo ?

dolby

Member

From: 1992

Registered: 2006-08-08

Posts: 1,581

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

a TU named swiergot updated the kernel on his own repo. check http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=32806
btw with the pkg cleaning theres talk about dropping most if not all other kernels besides the ARCH one..

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There shouldn't be any reason to learn more editor types than emacs or vi -- mg (1)
[You learn that sarcasm does not often work well in international forums.  That is why we avoid it. -- ewaller (arch linux forum moderator)

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Kernel26 , Kernel26ck , or Kernel26beyond ?

a TU named swiergot updated the kernel on his own repo. check http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=32806
btw with the pkg cleaning theres talk about dropping most if not all other kernels besides the ARCH one..

talk, no decisions. they probably wont be dropped.