Kernel Configuration

The Linux kernel used in this release package is based on 5.10 major revision.

NVIDIA Linux PDK/SDK packages use the Linux kernel with PREEMPT-RT patches applied and the images shipped with the package are with PREEMPT-RT patches applied.

PREEMPT-RT patches can be obtained here and are applied on top of the Linux kernel. Additionally, some patches are added by NVIDIA to resolve specific issues and are included as well.

The PREEMPT-RT patch files are available in the kernel/rt-patches folder in the Linux source (provided as a package as part of the release).

The primary change included with PREEMPT-RT patches is to convert spinlocks to mutex to make it preemptable.

The benefit of using PREEMPT-RT patches includes enabling real time capabilities and reducing system latency, which are critical for DRIVE OS based products.

There may be slight degradation in performance in some cases with the kernel with PREEMPT-RT patches compared to the kernel without PREEMPT-RT patches.

For more information on PREEMPT-RT, refer to the Linux Foundation documentation here.