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Ubuntu maker Canonical today announced the general availability of an enterprise-grade real-time Ubuntu kernel for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS systems to provide enterprises with end-to-end security and reliability for their time-bound workloads.
Designed for enterprises in aerospace, automotive, defense, IoT, robotics, and telcos, as well as the public sector and retail, the real-time Ubuntu kernel promises to handle the most demanding and critical workloads, or time-sensitive applications by reducing kernel latencies and boosting performance.
Ubuntu’s new RT kernel flavor is based on the long-term supported Linux 5.15 LTS kernel in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) and it’s available for x86_64 and ARM architectures. The kernel integrates the out-of-tree PREEMPT_RT patches, which makes it more preemptive than the mainline Linux kernel by using a real-time scheduling class that has a higher priority over the CFS scheduler.
Canonical says that the real-time Ubuntu kernel was designed to meet the 5G transformation needs of telco networks, but it’s also ideal for a wide range of enterprises, from industrial PCs to HMIs (Human-Machine Interfaces), who want to accelerate their technology adoption.
The real-time Ubuntu kernel is only available with an Ubuntu Pro subscription, which is free for personal and small-scale commercial use for up to five machines. To enable it, once you’ve enabled Ubuntu Pro, you must run the command below in a terminal emulator.
pro enable realtime-kernelTo update the real-time kernel package, you must run the sudo apt install ubuntu-realtime or sudo apt install linux-image-realtime commands. To revert back to the original Ubuntu kernel, you will have to manually configure the GRUB bootloader.
However, please note that the real-time kernel doesn’t support the proprietary NVIDIA graphics drivers. In addition, it cannot be enabled alongside Canonical’s Livepatch feature that offers rebootless kernel updates.
Canonical plans to add more new features to its real-time kernel, such as support for the full task isolation patchset. The real-time kernel is offered out-of-the-box with Canonical’s containerized Ubuntu variant optimized for edge devices, Ubuntu Core 22.
Last updated 1 year ago
