Ways to get

3 Linux Ready for Real-Time

The PREEMPT_RT Patch
PREEMPT_RT is the most well-known kernel
patch for making the Linux kernel preemptive.
Preemption increases determinism and
latency.
User Space Core Isolation
Pinning single threads to their own cores and
isolating them from the Linux kernel allows
them to run in a bare-metal like environment,
providing very good real-time characteristics.
Hypervisor Acceleration
Partitioning on operating system level using a
bare-metal hypervisor provides one real-time
domain and one domain for an unmodified
Linux kernel with IPC and shared file system.

3/10 6/10 6/10 5/10 5/10 3/10 9/10 5/10 7/10

Real-time Configuration and Usability Real-time Configuration and Usability Real-time Configuration Usability
performance maintenance performance maintenance performance and maintenance

Real-time and non-real-time functions Non-real-time functions Real-time functions Non-real-time functions Real-time functions

Linux Linux
Accelerated
NO_HZ_FULL Standard SMP Linux
environment
PREEMPT_RT Patched Kernel Patched Kernel
Hypervisor

Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core Core
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 n 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 n 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 n

Real-time characteristics Real-time characteristics Real-time characteristics

• Worst case interrupt latency: ~ 10-50 µs. • Worst case interrupt latency: ~ 5-30 µs. • Worst case interrupt latency: < 1 µs.

Configuration and maintenance Configuration and maintenance Configuration and maintenance

• Needs patching of the Linux kernel. • Configuration is complex. • Configuration is complex.
• PREEMPT_RT is maintained by the Linux Foundation. • Needs kernel patching. • Two different OS SDKs

Usability Usability Usability

• Decreases throughput significantly. • Allows only one thread per core. • Allows using unmodified SMP Linux.
• System calls from pinned services breaks determinism. • System calls and multiple tasks allowed from real-time
Suitable for • Provides good real-time characteristics for single- domain.
• Functions with moderate real-time requirements. threaded functions pinned to an isolated core. • Allows inter-core load balancing for real-time tasks.

Suitable for Suitable for

• Single-threaded real-time polled loop functions. • Functions with very high real-time requirements.

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