An rtkit repair on x86 keeps an install from killing desktop apps
A change merged into quattro installs rtkit on x86, where PipeWire never runs realtime, and repairs a running session so the install itself kills nothing.
On x86, Omarchy ships without rtkit, the system service that grants realtime scheduling to user programs that ask for it, so PipeWire never runs realtime and apps launched from the desktop carry a realtime budget of zero. A change merged into quattro installs rtkit and repairs a running session in an order so the install itself kills nothing.
Chrome, Electron apps such as Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, and VS Code, plus JetBrains Rider, SteamVR, and Playwright's Chromium, vanish with no dialog, no core dump, and nothing in the journal. The same gap leaves audio threads on ordinary scheduling, so sound crackles under load, worst at small buffer sizes and on a USB DAC.
emirb reported that upgrade, the way a user upgrades, on a Dell XPS 16 and on a desktop with an i5-12600K. No app was killed. On the laptop, 15 Chromium processes survived.
| XPS 16 | Desktop | |
|---|---|---|
| Processes holding a zero budget | 24 to 0 | 11 to 0 |
| Sound-card xruns under load, quantum 128 | 111 to 0 | 92 to 0, S/PDIF |
| Worst audio-thread wakeup under load | 12.2 ms to 22 µs | 12.5 ms to 10 µs |
emirb's upgrade on the Dell XPS 16 and the desktop, in the pull request.
PipeWire, pipewire-pulse, and WirePlumber moved from SCHED_OTHER to SCHED_RR 20.
Version 4.0.6 is the latest release.