Applying kernel patches

[Steve Blackwell]

Hi,

I want to use some audio applications such as Muse on my machine. After  
a little research I have found that I need to apply some patches to the  
kernel to improve the latency.

I downloaded the kernel-sourcecode-2.6.8-1.521 rpm and then the  
voluntary preemption patch voluntary-preempt-2.6.8.1-P9 from  
http://people.redhat.com/mingo/voluntary-preempt/older and placed this  
in the kernel source directory. Then using the instructions from the  
low latency wiki, http://wiki.philkern.de/5.html, I ran this command:

patch -p1 --dry-run < ./voluntary-preempt-2.6.8.1-P9

I get a bunch of errors. Here is the beginning of the output:

patching file arch/i386/kernel/entry.S
Hunk #1 succeeded at 314 (offset 104 lines).
patching file arch/i386/kernel/i386_ksyms.c
Hunk #2 succeeded at 146 (offset 3 lines).
patching file arch/i386/kernel/i8259.c
patching file arch/i386/kernel/io_apic.c
patching file arch/i386/kernel/irq.c
Hunk #2 FAILED at 196.
Hunk #3 succeeded at 215 (offset -4 lines).
Hunk #5 succeeded at 298 (offset -5 lines).
Hunk #6 succeeded at 318 (offset 2 lines).
Hunk #7 succeeded at 322 (offset -5 lines).
Hunk #8 FAILED at 337.
Hunk #9 succeeded at 345 (offset -15 lines).
Hunk #10 succeeded at 448 (offset -5 lines).
Hunk #11 succeeded at 446 (offset -15 lines).
Hunk #12 FAILED at 641.
3 out of 12 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file arch/i386/kernel/ 
irq.c.rej
...
Reversed (or previously applied) patch detected!  Assume -R? [n]
...

I answered 'n' to all these.

So my questions are:

1) Am I using the correct patch for this kernel?
2) Do I need to apply all patches in order, P0 - P9?
3) Has anyone else successfully done this?

rpm -q --whatprovides patch
patch-2.5.4-19

Thanks,
Steve