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wiki:choosing_and_installing_kernels [2013/10/23 15:09] – [Testing kernels] danboidwiki:choosing_and_installing_kernels [2013/11/18 20:46] (current) – [Are you running the best kernel for your hardware?] danboid
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 The kernel can be seen as the engine of the Linux OS - it contains nearly all of the drivers for your hardware. KXStudio 12.04.3 runs the 3.8.0-32-lowlatency kernel by default. This kernel will be fine for most people but, most significantly for users of an audio-centric distro, you may not be able to run JACK with optimal settings if you are using USB audio devices such as the Focusrite Scarlett family of USB devices, for example.  The kernel can be seen as the engine of the Linux OS - it contains nearly all of the drivers for your hardware. KXStudio 12.04.3 runs the 3.8.0-32-lowlatency kernel by default. This kernel will be fine for most people but, most significantly for users of an audio-centric distro, you may not be able to run JACK with optimal settings if you are using USB audio devices such as the Focusrite Scarlett family of USB devices, for example. 
  
-Both during and before Linux 3.5 as well as since kernel 3.11, JACK runs happily with a buffer size of 64 @ 3 periods/buffer, giving a low JACK latency but under the 3.8 kernels you're likely find you cannot start JACK at a buffer size less than 1024 with some USB hardware. Users of PCI, integrated and FireWire audio devices need not concern themselves with this and it also seems that not all USB audio devices have issues with 3.8 so in many cases you won't know which kernel you need until you have tested any USB audio devices you have.+Both during and before Linux 3.5 as well as since kernel 3.11, JACK runs happily with a buffer size of 64 @ 3 periods/buffer @ 48Khz on the Scarlett USB devices, giving a low JACK latency but under the 3.8 kernels you're likely to find you cannot start JACK at a buffer size less than 1024 with such USB hardware. Users of PCI, integrated and FireWire audio devices need not concern themselves with this and it also seems that not all USB audio devices have issues with 3.8 so in many cases you won't know which kernel you need until you have tested your USB audio devices.
  
-Another notable difference between the kernels currently available from the KXStudio repositories is the greatly improved performance of the open source AMD/ATI Radeon drivers within 3.11 and later kernels due to the kernel and the FLOSS radeon drivers gaining support for re-clocking the AMD GPUs so they can run at full speed. I have not personally verified this myself yet and I suspect it may also involve updating Xorg and mesa using PPA's that are not included with or supported by KXStudio+Another notable difference between the kernels currently available from the KXStudio repositories is the greatly improved performance of the open source AMD/ATI Radeon drivers within 3.11 and later kernels due to the kernel and the FLOSS Radeon drivers gaining support for re-clocking the AMD GPUs so they can run at full speed. I have not personally verified this myself yet and I suspect it may also involve updating Xorg and Mesa using PPA's that are not included with or supported by KXStudio or Canonical.
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-Intel graphics users need not worry about installing the 3.11 kernel but at the time of writing I was unable to install the non-free Nvidia drivers from the Ubuntu repos for 3.11 and have them work so I was stuck with the considerably less complete and performant Nouveau xorg graphics drivers. I cannot comment on the AMD/Catalyst non-free driver and 3.11 as I have not tried it yet.+
  
 +Intel graphics users need not worry about installing the 3.11 kernel but at the time of writing the Nvidia drivers available in the Ubuntu Precise repos do not support kernel 3.11. This may also be the case for some ATi/AMD Catalyst users. Nvidia 3.11 users must use at least driver version 331.20+ so it is recommended that Nvidia and ATi users who want to fully utilise their hardware wait for newer, 3.11 compatible graphics drivers to make it into the Ubuntu repositories before upgrading. The updated drivers are expected to be available from the repos by March 2014.
 =====Installing a kernel and its headers===== =====Installing a kernel and its headers=====
  
wiki/choosing_and_installing_kernels.1382533784.txt.gz · Last modified: 2013/10/23 15:09 by danboid