After 20 years of development PREEMPT_RT has been merged and will go live with version 6.12
This means Linux now supports execution programs that cannot be interrupted with kernel hw interrupt. The kernel can stop almost any task at any point to execute such an important task at any time. This is critical for many programs. Think of the brakes of a car or a medical device.
Normally such functionality requires hardware support and software that is almost like an entire separate os called "real-time OS".
https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/realtime/documentation/start
Here are pics from the celepration of the merge:
I agree this is huge for certain applications! CNC machines, 3D printers and many motion appliations can benefit here. It's been painful in the past to build an up to date kernel with RT support and I can't wait to see where this goes.
CNC machines and 3d printers? Really? Why?
These are devices that, if the system that controls them is interrupted, interrupt their operation. On an industrial scale, this would be disastrous. However, using an RT kernel, the process would not be affected, at least not the one that is in progress.