How to switch between low latency and generic kernels?
I have installed a low latency kernel to help Ardour's performance while recording audio. On boot-up, it appears I can select which 'version' of Ubuntu I want; the two choices are 'Ubuntu' and 'Ubuntu low-latency'. However, when I run uname -r
with either one, I get 3.14.0-031400-lowlatency
.
Why the separate boot up options if 'Ubuntu' is the same as 'Ubuntu low-latency'? Is there a way to actually boot-up with the generic kernel? Is there a reason to, or are there drawbacks from using the low latency kernel while doing my day-to-day tasks?
Here is a nice fix with dual listing:
-
Low-latency
- Download
ubuntustudio-default-settings
package from http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/ubuntustudio-default-settings (choose your release through links in the top right corner) - Extract it.
-
Copy
09_lowlatency
file to/etc/grub.d/
If you don't want low-latency entry to be the top one, rename it to
11_lowlatency
so it will be processed after10_linux
.
- Download
-
Generic and other kernel types
Edit
/etc/grub.d/10_linux
as explained in this answer to exclude low-latency kernel from its listing.
The answer by Sneetsher is valid, but, just as an alternative, I used a different solution. If you want to have separate entries in GRUB in /etc/grub.d/
for generic
and lowlatency
kernels, you can just make a copy of the file 09_lowlatency
. If you want the new entry to be the first one, name it something like 08_generic
, but you can choose the ordering as you prefer (e.g. you can have 08_lowlatency
and 09_generic
). Then, edit the copied file and replace all the occurrences of lowlatency
with generic
, and update GRUB. That should give you the two options on boot.