You probably already heard of now famous ~200 lines patch for linux kernel by Mike Galbrait. Continuing Con Kolivas saga somewhat more successfully in terms of acceptance into mainline kernel. The patch, albeit only around 200 lines of C code, shows remarkable increase in desktop responsiveness. If you don't know what i'm talking about, check out Phoronix article about the patch. They even have videos showing off the difference.
Today i'll show you how to bring this marvelous patch on to your own Ubuntu desktop. We are not going to compile anything. We are going to use Ubuntu Natty kernel package that has the patch applied by nice folks at Canonical.
1. Download kernel package
Go to packages.ubuntu.com and search for linux-image. It's a virtual package providing list of actual kernel packages. Choose the latest. At time of this writing it's linux-image-2.6.37-7-generic. At the bottom of the page you'll find download links. Choose you architecture, mirror and download the package.
2. Installation
Double click on downloaded package and choose Install.
sudo dpkg -i <package name> should work just fine too.
3. Reboot
That's it folks! You should be running the new kernel now.
If you want to be sure. Open up terminal and run uname -r. I got 2.6.37-7-generic which is the kernel i downloaded and installed.
Also, check with the kernel that we indeed running the new feature.
$ sysctl kernel.sched_autogroup_enabled
kernel.sched_autogroup_enabled = 1
Enjoy low latency desktop :)
