Optimizing Linux Kernel for Real-time Performance On Multi-Core Architecture

Linux kernel developed and distributed in open source doesn’t support for Hard Real-time scheduling. The open source Linux kernels are designed in time sharing manner to obtain maximum throughput. With this, Linux Operating System is considered to be an OS, which is not supporting Real-Time Applications, natively it has some features, already included in the mainstream to provide real-time support. There are certain modified Linux kernels like RTLinux, Symbian OS, Nucleus OS, Lynx OS and Fusion RTOS [1] which are explicitly designed for hard Real-Time support [2]. These specially designed Real-Time Linux kernels is mostly targeted for special hardware’s like embedded systems, robots, safety critical etc.,very few kernels for general purpose. Most of these kernels are be available as proprietary or closed, excluding a very few and not suitable for all hardware architecture’s. Now a days Real-Time Performance has become universal requirement for computer games, multimedia systems, household monitoring and controlling appliances. So the general purpose Linux kernel needs to be optimized, to achieve Real-time performance to meet the user expectations. This paper tries to extract real-time performance from general kernel and suggest some techniques to optimize Linux kernel to meet real-time deadlines