Provide Ubuntu EC2 kernels with 1000Hz timer (for VOIP/Asterisk)

Question: Is the stock unvirtualized Ubuntu kernel sufficient to achieve decent quality audio when running VOIP software like Asterisk?

Under EC2 the latency is a combination of the kernel Hz setting and the overhead of virtualization. For Karmic the Ubuntu kernel for EC2 will be using XEN pv-ops, which will fix some of the latency issues. Combine this with Karmic being based on 2.6.31 and this may be enough that a separate 1000Hz kernel won't be needed.

We're (where 'we' means John) are working on getting a Karmic kernel. Once we've got the kernels available it'd be great to see if that is sufficient to close this bug.

Just an update we have Karmic kernels now (see lp bug 418130), also the alpha6 ami when release should a karmic kernel set as the default. This should enable testing to proceed.

Could the opener of this bug (or interested parties) please test beta kernels:

US 32-bit ami-52be5d3b
US 64-bit ami-5ebe5d37
Europe 32-bit ami-544c6720
Europe 64-bit ami-564c6722

Also, as per John,

10/02/09 19:16:14 <jjohansen> there are also, almost identical kernels with Hz=250 and kexec
10/02/09 19:16:48 <jjohansen> x86_64: aki-5e896a37 ari-50896a39
10/02/09 19:17:01 <jjohansen> i386: aki-00896a69 ari-02896a6b
10/02/09 19:17:51 <jjohansen> the Hz=250 was to compare that vs. standard config for VOIP

Ideally the "stock" kernels would be good enough now.

Please add this. There are no 1000HZ ubuntu ami's

Rob,

Correct there aren't, however it is now possible to easily replace Ubuntu kernels with custom kernels now that we use pvgrub (it has even been backported to previous releases). Once a custom kernel has been made it can be installed into an ebs backed instance and reboot just like you would do on the desktop.

Basic instructions on building a kernel are at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/BuildYourOwnKernel

You can also drop questions about building the kernel in #ubuntu-kernel

I (original requester) suggest the status of this wishlist item be changed to "wontfix" now that there is a way for users to build their own kernels on EC2. Canonical does not need to support multiple kernels with different frequencies.

Eric Hammond, this bug report is being closed due to your last comment https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/365233/comments/7 regarding one may now create custom kernels in EC2. For future reference you can manage the status of your own bugs by clicking on the current status in the yellow line and then choosing a new status in the revealed drop down box. You can learn more about bug statuses at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status. Thank you again for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please submit any future bugs you may find.