[Asterisk-Users] learning from the audio folks

[Florin Andrei]

Besides playing with Asterisk, i'm also using Linux for all kinds of
multimedia things, especially recording music, mixing, etc.
In order to use Linux as a digital audio workstation, there are a few
things that one must do: use low-latency kernels, use pre-emption, use
apps that run with real-time privileges, etc.

For example, among audio Linux users, the CK (Con Kolivas) and LCK
(Locosoft CK) patches are popular:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/
http://www.plumlocosoft.com/kernel/

These patches provide O(1) scheduler, pre-emption, low latency, variable
Hz, and other improvements that the audio community found not only
useful, but actually required to do any kind of serious audio work with
Linux.
Some of those patches were integrated into kernel 2.6, so the CK patch
for 2.6 is smaller than LCK.

Also, JACK, the professional audio daemon for Linux, has options for
running with real-time privileges.

It crossed my mind that Asterisk performs a job quite similar to JACK.
The problems that the audio community see with JACK (dropped audio
frames, jitter, etc.) are not unheard of to Asterisk users.

Therefore:
- does it makes sense to experiment with the kernel audio patches?
- if Asterisk doesn't already do that (correct me if i'm wrong), does it
make sense to make it run with real-time privileges, just like JACK? (i
have no idea how JACK accomplishes that, to me it's just a command-line
option that makes it a lot more reliable)

Anyone running Asterisk on top of a 2.4 LCK kernel?

-- 
Florin Andrei

http://florin.myip.org/