Chrony over NTP is capable of incredible accuracy, as shown in the post. Most users who think they need PTP actually just need Chrony and high quality NICs.
Chrony is also much better software than any of the PTP daemons I tested a few years ago (for an onboard autonomous vehicle system).
NTP fundamentally cannot reach the same accuracy as PTP because Ethernet switches introduce jitter due to queueing delays and can report that in PTP but not NTP.
chrony can be configured to encapsulate NTP messages in PTP messages (NTP over PTP) in order to get the delay corrections from switches working as one-step PTP transparent clocks. The current NTPv5 draft specifies an NTP-specific correction field, which switches could support in future if there was a demand for it.
The switches could also implement a proper HW-timestamping NTP server and client to provide an equivalent to a PTP boundary clock.
PTP was based on a broadcast/multicast model to reduce the message rate in order to simplify and reduce the cost of HW support. But that is no longer a concern with modern HW that can timestamp packets at very high rates, so the simpler unicast protocols like NTP and client-server PTP (CSPTP) currently developed by IEEE might be preferable to classic PTP for better security and other advantages.
Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't that be true only for testing accross comparable hardware? Would that be true in scenarios like the one that the author describes, where he uses 3 different systems (threadriper cpu, raspberrypi, and LeoNTP GPS-backed NTP server) and architectures?
The blog's next post is about PTP, if that's what you're interested in.
The Linux PTP stack is great for the price, but as an open source project it's hamstrung by the fact the PTP standard (IEEE1588) is paywalled; and the fact it doesn't work on wifi or usb-ethernet converters (meaning it also doesn't work on laptop docking stations or raspberry pi 3 and earlier)
This limits people developing/using for fun. And it's the people using it for fun who actually write all the documentation, the 'serious users' at high frequency trading firms and cell phone networks aren't blogging about their exploits.
802.1AS-2020 (gPTP) includes 802.11-2016 (wifi) support.
The IEEE's gatekeeping is indeed odious.
The biggest limitation is that many ethernet MACs do not support hardware timestamping. Nor do many entry-level ethernet switches.
For what it's worth, I'm interested in TSN for fun (music, actually), and I'm prepared to buy compatible networking hardware to do it. No difference to gamers spending money on a GPU.
Chrony is also much better software than any of the PTP daemons I tested a few years ago (for an onboard autonomous vehicle system).