Alternative Performance Kernel for Debian

[nadir]

# Liquorix sources added by smxi
deb http://liquorix.net/debian/ sid main

Works just fine here but my install is 32bit. No issues, kernel just updated a couple of days ago.

thanks for posting. i tried again and this time without problems. Might have been a temporary issue.

[damentz]

Sorry guys, the 2.6.32 kernel was a fluke! You can get it from the future repo: deb http://liquorix.net/debian sid main future

I accidentally threw it into the main one without knowing. This happened around the same time that the hash sum mismatch occurred as I was trying to restore my repository.

Everything is fixed now though, if you want to stay on 2.6.32, add the future repo to continue updating it! Otherwise you can remove the 2.6.32 packages and update to the latest 2.6.31 ones (2.6.31-5.dmz.4 as of this post).

PS: I'm very surprised that fglrx works. Preemptable RCU is known to cause problems with this driver module, but I'm using Preemptable Tree RCU now-a-days going forward with 2.6.32. It's supposed to be simpler and less buggy than the original Preemptable RCU implementation and so far I've had zero problems with it.

[alpha-dog]

PS: I'm very surprised that fglrx works. Preemptable RCU is known to cause problems with this driver module, but I'm using Preemptable Tree RCU now-a-days going forward with 2.6.32. It's supposed to be simpler and less buggy than the original Preemptable RCU implementation and so far I've had zero problems with it.

I used the sgfxi script -> this command

Code: Select all

sgfxi -f -! 1

[damentz]

Excellent, well I'm thrilled that fglrx can now use some sort of preemptable RCU, everyone wins here

[alpha-dog]

Excellent, well I'm thrilled that fglrx can now use some sort of preemptable RCU, everyone wins here

I've been useing 2.6.32-rc8 liquorix kernel and it works good, but it will freeze for up to a minute occasionally. I have read that the fglrx drivers will cause that, but I like the 3d and have kept it installed. I've also seen that the 2.6.32 kernel may not need the fglrx drivers for 3d. Will 3d work on the r6xx chipset ( radeon 3870 ) with open-source drivers with your 2.6.32-rc8 liquorix kernel. I also have a problem with shutdown, it will get to KILL ALL and hang.

[damentz]

Most likely that hang may be related to BFS. The zen developers had been porting the 2.6.31 base of BFS to 2.6.32 and I believe this is causing problems. When cheater rebases 2.6.32 with the correct BFS base that Con released, we'll see what the real culprit is.


EDIT: try the newest, 2.6.32-rc8-dmz.2

[oOarthurOo]

This has been a very interesting thread, but I'm a bit leery of installing a kernel maintained by one person. Any chance you could post some tips for those of us who want to recompile our own kernels to tune for desktop usage?

/threadjack

[damentz]

Use BFS instead of CFS.

Use kernel preemption over voluntary kernel preemption or no preemption.

Use at least 1000hz tick rate unless you have a radically slow cpu where the overhead of ticks causes a measureable loss in throughput.

Do not optimize for size.

Use CFQ from 2.6.32 and up with the low_latency attribute set to 1 - this should be default but I'm reading that this might be changed.

Enable sched_iso for X.

Enable MTRR cleanup.

Use sparse memory allocation for 32bit.

Review Ubuntu's config and compare it to Fedora - Ubuntu's kernel config appears to get better throughput benchmarks on Phoronix.

[craigevil]

$ uname -a
Linux craigevil 2.6.32-2.dmz.1-liquorix-686 #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT Sat Dec 19 06:37:32 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
Works just great for me. Heck I can't even get a debian kernel to boot, keeps giving some error about hdb not being ready. If it wasn't for the liquorix kernel I would still be using a sidux kernel and complaining about how slow my system is.

[oOarthurOo]

Many thanks damentz. I'll give those a try next kernel update. On testing so it shouldn't be more than a month or so.

[vbrummond]

Thanks a ton damentz! I switched from Ubuntu and the one thing I was missing is an easy to install Desktop kernel. After a hiccup with installing Nvidia drivers, I got it and now I am testing how BFS works for me.

[mzilikazi]

Code: Select all

$ inxi 
CPU[-Dual core Intel Pentium Dual T2390 (SMP) clocked at Min:1333.000Mhz Max:1867.000Mhz-] Kernel[-2.6.33-0.dmz.4-liquorix-amd64 x86_64-] Up[-58 min-] Mem[-551.0/3013.9MB-] HDD[-122.0GB(13.1% used)-] Procs[-155-] Client[-Shell-] inxi[-1.3.14-] 

Nice and smooth here....

[Stian1979]

I tested this kernel some time last year and I had no problems with it.
I decided to tes it again on my new install on USB stick.
I defently feel there is a speed gain and I'm now looking into building it from source so I can chose my CPU.

[gradinaruvasile]

I have a Dell D630 laptop and the 2.6.32 kernel had some problems with bluetooth (kernel oops on pulseaudio bluetooth device disconnect and sometimes when transferring files to phones via bluetooth.
So i installed the liquorix kernel - the bluetooth is better here (well with a few workarounds), but the big problem is that hibernation doesnt work with this kernel (and the suspend only works if i close, open and close the lid again, but thats not that big issue). When i select hibernate, the screensaver activates, the screen goes blank and nothing more happens - if i move the cursor with mouse/touchpad, the unlock dialog appears.
Is there a fix/workaround for this?

[damentz]

Not really, there are two technologies that add an unstable edge to hibernation and suspend in my kernel; tuxonice and bfs.

TuxOnIce used to be very troublesome, causing build errors and just doing weird things to your system at runtime. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore, but it can still be an issue since no one has fully tested all the aspects of its stability.

The second technology is BFS, which already has minor issues with certain laptops. No one has really tracked down what's causing it, however, and Con would prefer to spend more time with his family than go back debugging BFS more vigorously.

If you would like to test, try building a vanilla kernel with only BFS patches enabled and see if suspend works that way. This way we'll know for sure if TuxOnIce is the culprit or not.

[TJA]

I tried to get the 2.6.33 kernel:

[...]
W: GPG error: http://liquorix.net sid Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 3EFF4F272FB2CD80
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems

And then, the following happend:

root@beta:/usr/src/linux-2.6.33.2# apt-get install '.*liquorix'
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting linux-image-2.6.33-1.dmz.5-liquorix-amd64 for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting linux-image-2.6-liquorix-amd64 for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting linux-headers-2.6.33-1.dmz.5-liquorix-amd64 for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting linux-headers-2.6-liquorix-amd64 for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting liquorix-archive-keyring for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting liquorix-keyring for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting liquorix-keyrings for regex '.*liquorix'
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
linux-headers-2.6-liquorix-amd64: Depends: linux-headers-2.6.33-1.dmz.5-liquorix-amd64 (= 2.6.33-16) but it is not installable
linux-image-2.6-liquorix-amd64: Depends: linux-image-2.6.33-1.dmz.5-liquorix-amd64 (= 2.6.33-16) but it is not installable
E: Broken packages

That does not seem to work on my Lenny box (


After that, i just tried to download "33.2-1.patch.gz" which i suspect to be the patch to vanilla 2.6.33.2?!?

wget http://liquorix.net/sources/33.2-1.patch.gz

But HOW to apply that patch to 2.6.33.2?

:-O

[TJA]

I looked at your webpage and found the statement about

apt-get install '^liquorix-([^-]+-)?keyring.?'

which i did ...

But still, after that:

root@beta:/usr/src/linux-2.6-2.6.26# apt-get install '.*liquorix'
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting linux-image-2.6.33-1.dmz.5-liquorix-amd64 for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting linux-image-2.6-liquorix-amd64 for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting linux-headers-2.6.33-1.dmz.5-liquorix-amd64 for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting linux-headers-2.6-liquorix-amd64 for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting liquorix-archive-keyring for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting liquorix-keyring for regex '.*liquorix'
Note, selecting liquorix-keyrings for regex '.*liquorix'
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
linux-headers-2.6-liquorix-amd64: Depends: linux-headers-2.6.33-1.dmz.5-liquorix-amd64 (= 2.6.33-16) but it is not installable
linux-image-2.6-liquorix-amd64: Depends: linux-image-2.6.33-1.dmz.5-liquorix-amd64 (= 2.6.33-16) but it is not installable
E: Broken packages


:-O

[miks]

AFAIK, liquorix kernels cannot be installed in lenny.

[TJA]

Thank you ...

[damentz]

Oops, apparently I didn't complete my synchronization to my website, it's fixed now - sorry for the inconvenience.

AFAIK, liquorix kernels cannot be installed in lenny.

I tried to remove as much package version dependency mess as possible, this allows me to install my kernel in Ubuntu too . If it works, well, hurray!