Kernel Configuration

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

NVIDIA Linux PDK and 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 added by NVIDIA to resolve specific issues are also included.

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 NVIDIA 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, see the Linux Foundation documentation.