Ultra-low latency programming on Linux, where to begin?

Question

I heard there are some ways to modify linux such that an particular application can obtain very low latency such that whenver it ask resources, the OS will try to give it the resource as soon as possible, kind of overriding the default preemptive multitasking mechanism, I dont have a CS background, but the application I am working-on is very latency-sensitive, can anyone tell me are there any docs/stuff on this specific matter? many thanks.

Answer 1

Guaranteed low-latency response is called the real time capability. It means that timing goals that are realistic are guaranteed to be met.

There is a project for it called RTLinux. See the Real-Time Linux Wiki: https://rt.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page

Answer 2

There are two real time models :

• soft real time system - you get it by applying RT preempt kernel patches. I think it guaranties context switch within 10 ms. The goal of this project is to conform to hard real time requirements
• hard real time system - have stricter guaranties (response of 1 ms). There are some libraries (like xenomai) that claim they provide hard real time system.