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2024-11-05 - 04:58

Dates and Events:

OSADL Articles:

2024-10-02 12:00

Linux is now an RTOS!

PREEMPT_RT is mainline - What's next?


2023-11-12 12:00

Open Source License Obligations Checklists even better now

Import the checklists to other tools, create context diffs and merged lists


2023-03-01 12:00

Embedded Linux distributions

Results of the online "wish list"


2022-01-13 12:00

Phase #3 of OSADL project on OPC UA PubSub over TSN successfully completed

Another important milestone on the way to interoperable Open Source real-time Ethernet has been reached


2021-02-09 12:00

Open Source OPC UA PubSub over TSN project phase #3 launched

Letter of Intent with call for participation is now available



2010-08-13 12:00 Age: 14 Years

Quality assessment of Linux real-time now online!

By: Carsten Emde

Seeing behind the curtain ...

We have just created a direct link from one of the OSADL testing labs to the OSADL Web server. This makes it possible to continuously display the current state of the Linux real-time kernel quality assessment on the Web. The data presented include

The continuously monitored worst-case wakeup latency is based on the latency histograms that are part of the real-time kernel (configuration items WAKEUP_LATENCY_HIST and MISSED_TIMER_OFFSETS_HIST). The displayed latency includes a possible offset due to a timer latency plus the scheduling latency. As an advantage of this method, the apparent latency of every single wakeup procedure of every real-time process of the system is registered; in consequence, every possible deadline miss would be discovered. The penalty of enabling these histograms normally is less than 1%.

The latency plots are generated twice a day using 100 million cycles of cyclictest with an interval of 200 µs requiring about 5.5 hours to run. A system load is generated by concurrent stress programs. Note that a small number of systems run a non-RT kernel and that the latency scale is larger in combined plots where non-RT systems are included (200 µs in RT plots vs. 2,000 µs in non-RT plots).

The system profiles are generated automatically and updated to always reflect the current situation of the system under test.

A PREEMPT_RT real-time kernel patch is not released as "Latest Stable", unless all systems under test are, in fact, stable and in no case is the worst-case latency significantly longer than in the previously released "Latest Stable".