CPU Management for Multimedia Applications : A case study

Abstract

This paper is submitted as the final work for obtaining the title Cand. Scient. at the Dept. of Informatics at the University of Oslo, Norway.

The paper is a case study of working implementations of soft real-time features for Linux. The problems raised by multimedia applications running alongside normal applications is discussed. A comparison of the architecture of modern Linux versus traditional UNIX is given, and the implications for soft real-time applications are highlighted.

Finally, some contemporary projects that implement various soft real-time features for Linux are compared in a practical experiment involving video, and software to support this activity is developed. A workload is designed, and the use of a sophisticated profiling tool is explained.