Ubuntu Wiki

• Launchpad Entry: ubuntu-arm-p-server-kernel

• Created: Jani Monoses

• Contributors:

• Packages affected:

Summary

For the 12.04 cycle, we will evaluate whether a separate kernel package for ARM server would be beneficial.

Release Note

Ubuntu ARM server uses a specifically optimized kernel for server use-cases.

Rationale

There may be power, latency or reliability gains to be had in the ARM server kernel if we use certain kernel config options that are not shared with the desktop builds.

User stories

• Zhu Peng wants to run Ubuntu server on his ARM box and would rather not have HDMI, DRM and sound related errors in his logs.
• Aaqilah has a cluster of Ubuntu ARM servers and wants to make sure her electricity bill is not impacted by a kernel that does unnecessary things.

Assumptions

• This may turn out entirely unfounded but some config options used by the default ARM kernels (for OMAP4 or others, as they have differing configs) may impact server use cases negatively.

Design

Implementation

• First we need to sync up as much of our ARM kernel configs to standard Ubuntu sauce. Second we talk to kernel team ans see whether they still consider server needs to be a different flavour on x86/amd64 Then we use Ubuntu ARM server and run tests with the few possible config options that may change the behaviour significantly. Candidates are anything was different between generic and server in x86 land.

Targets

UI Changes

Code Changes

Migration

Test/Demo Plan

• Run latency and thoughput tests with and without the config options that constitute the delta between Ubuntu generic ans server as used on x86 and amd64, to see if those are still valid and whether they impact ARM.

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec