[SOLVED] Realtime kernels in PPAs

[thebutant]

Hey.
Some years of running Debian (testing and stable) ended last Friday, when an update in Debian stable made my computer rather. . . unstable. Or unusable.
After struggling a bit with the new installs of Debian, I got frustrated, and as I really needed the computer to work, I installed what just works: Linux Mint. 18.3.

And it's just so good. Oh my. I always thought so, but I haven't been using it for years. What a joy I think it is having Linux Mint on my machine. But there's one issue for me: The reason I ran Debian was the great linux-rt kernel they provide.

Linux Mint has a low-latency kernel in its repos. And it works well, but it just cannot compare with a realtime kernel for live usage. Which I do quite often, so I need the computer to deliver at live performances.
So I thought "well, there must be a PPA somewhere providing realtime kernels - to think of all the people running Ubuntu, the option must be there somewhere". But I cannot find it. Can anyone else? Is there something I'm missing?

Please don't tell I must compile it myself. Please.

[alepeccioli]

http://bandshed.net/forum/index.php?topic=3719.0

[lilith]

when an update in Debian stable made my computer rather. . . unstable. Or unusable.

Ups... do you know what happend?

[thebutant]

http://bandshed.net/forum/index.php?topic=3719.0

Thank you so much!
This looks great, seems like just what I was looking for.
I'll give it a try!

when an update in Debian stable made my computer rather. . . unstable. Or unusable.

Ups... do you know what happend?

To be honest, I don't quite know. There was a kernel update (linux-rt), but there might also have been something else.
Anyway, when booting, after grub, the system was loading for quite a while before:
1/ sometimes giving me the error "Could not update ICEauthority file /home/user/.ICEauthority".
2/ sometimes showing me only the cursor made into a black cross.
3/ sometimes, but unfortunately too rarely, simply loading the system as usual.

Of course I tried to follow the Iceauthority lead, but after hours of trying several solutions found online, the experience was still the same.
So I reinstalled first Debian testing, then Debian stable, but it seemed Debian was putting up a fight with me. I've installed it plenty of times before, but now there was just too much hassle. Having to install grub from a live usb afterwards, the system not booting becuase of driver issues (I still don't understand those). Bla bla. Linux Mint really just saved the day.

[briandc]

I'm sorry to hear about this issue with Debian. You would do us all a big favor by reporting it, since this is definitely an issue to get resolved!

I use LinuxMint for work, and indeed it works well. But I don't know if I'd recommend it for live performance for precisely the same reason you mentioned: a RT kernel is just better than a low-latency kernel.

In my opinion, it might be better to choose a distro that you are certain will give you the RT kernel included (or at least installable directly from the repos). I'm currently using Librazik-2 and I'm really happy with it. The RT kernel is not the default but can be selected from the repos and installed. (My set-up has several kernels currently installed, so I have to select the RT kernel when booting, but that's fine for me and it might be possible to uninstall the other kernels in order to "force" the RT kernel every time. I'm not certain though...)

brian

[thebutant]

So this week my new setup was put to the test:
A live performance with a load just as heavy as I dare to do live.
Vocals and music mixed together, several plugins (delays, reverbs, compressors, eq, filters, Mixxx playing sound together with the live stuff).
Frames/period set to 64, no audible latency.
My system running Mint 18.3 on the 4.9.76-rt61avl2 kernel from here: http://bandshed.net/forum/index.php?topic=3719.0

And I had zero xruns during the whole night!
It ran just as smooth as I could dream of.
I'm truly grateful for the AVLinux kernels being available this way, and being so good!

I don't really remember the last time I was so satisfied with my setup. Mint being this great userfriendly OS, the kernel working so flawlessly, and of course the KXStudio repos to get everything audio. I'm having one of these rare moments where I feel like found Linux peace.