Linus Torvalds Is Doing More ARM64 Linux Testing Now That He Has A More Powerful System

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linus Torvalds Is Doing More ARM64 Linux Testing Now That He Has A More Powerful System

Linux kernel and Git creator Linus Torvalds is known for his current use of an AMD Ryzen Threadripper workstation as his main system after years of using Intel hardware. The past few years he's also been doing more ARM64 testing now that he has an Apple MacBook using Apple Silicon that serves as a nice travel device and for routinely compiling new ARM64 Linux kernel builds. More recently, his ARM64 Linux testing has increased now that he has a more powerful AArch64 system to complement his collection of routine gear...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linus-Torvalds-Ampere-More-ARM

[edxposed]

Where are Qualcomm brothers? Please follow Ampere's example and honor your promises.

[EphemeralEft]

I wonder how many companies / state-level actors send Linus hardware with a backdoor in it. If I were him I wouldn’t trust any hardware I didn’t buy myself from the next town over.

[gfunk]

I was gonna yell RISCV but it got mentioned at the end XD

[sophisticles]

I wonder how many companies / state-level actors send Linus hardware with a backdoor in it. If I were him I wouldn’t trust any hardware I didn’t buy myself from the next town over.

If hardware has a backdoor it's not going to matter where you get it from, the backdoor will exist in all the hardware produced.

Unless you mean that someone sent him a specially compromised system but even that wouldn't matter.

Want to know why?

Because I doubt the systems he uses for development work and testing are constantly connected to the internet and even if they were I would think he probably has his router configured so they can only access certain sites, like git.

The whole backdoor, compromised hardware and software angle is way overblown, most workstations are air-gapped or the network is configured to allow only certain IP addresses and certain ports in or out.

[cutterjohn]

I was gonna yell RISCV but it got mentioned at the end XD

me too, but let's be honest riscv isn't quite to 1.0 yet, and it it IS just as fragmented by IP blocks as ARM.

BUT most of the riscv people seem to be aiming to mainline while ARM vendors only recently became serious about that, and it was the primary producers of ARM SoCs that blocked mainline in one way or another until recently... hello qualcomm, broadcom, etc. and then let's introduce the same(or similar ip blocks) in riscv vendors and their blobs that require EOL kernels...

EDIT: MAYBE later this year there will be some riscv 1.0 hw that can mostly be mainline... I went on the milkv oasis ticket line myself... hoping for modularity and something decent v. typical ARM stuff... e.g. slotted RAM, decent SATA, thought out PCIe(although it seems like a single slot right now although unfortunately the SoC is still apparently in flux...)

As long as they do NOT give me fifty USBA ports, decent PCIe, SATA Ill be happy... they can keep the USB...

[Chugworth]

If hardware has a backdoor it's not going to matter where you get it from, the backdoor will exist in all the hardware produced.

Unless you mean that someone sent him a specially compromised system but even that wouldn't matter.

Want to know why?

Because I doubt the systems he uses for development work and testing are constantly connected to the internet and even if they were I would think he probably has his router configured so they can only access certain sites, like git.

The whole backdoor, compromised hardware and software angle is way overblown, most workstations are air-gapped or the network is configured to allow only certain IP addresses and certain ports in or out.

It's anyone's guess how well his computer security is. But when a person has a high level of influence, hacking attempts can be much more sophisticated and targeted. It would definitely be a good idea to be cautious with any equipment that's received for free.

[varikonniemi]

If hardware has a backdoor it's not going to matter where you get it from, the backdoor will exist in all the hardware produced.

Unless you mean that someone sent him a specially compromised system but even that wouldn't matter.

Want to know why?

Because I doubt the systems he uses for development work and testing are constantly connected to the internet and even if they were I would think he probably has his router configured so they can only access certain sites, like git.

The whole backdoor, compromised hardware and software angle is way overblown, most workstations are air-gapped or the network is configured to allow only certain IP addresses and certain ports in or out.

nice theory. But in practice that level of paranoia helps nothing if your attacker also controls the router and bypasses your fancy whitelist.

Even airgapping helps little against a state level attacker, as we saw with iranian nuclear centrifuges selfdestructing. Only staying isolated from the world will keep you safe.

[ayumu]

Now how long until there is a powerful RISC-V system that attracts Torvalds' interest?

Not long.

Milk-V Oasis with 16x SiFive P670 and 8x SiFive X280 is expected to ship to enthusiasts this year, significantly faster than any available ARM SBC.

Otherwise, the (very powerful, competitive with AMD/Intel) Ventana Veyron V2 and Tenstorrent Ascalon are due this year.

SiFive has announced its P870 but seeing it on chips will take longer.

Many others including Rivos and Qualcomm are working on their own very high performance implementations.

RISC-V is inevitable.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

All of the leading companies building to the different ISAs should really be providing systems to Linus, Greg, and probably several of the subsystem maintainers (or reimbursing them). In the grand scheme of things it would be an absurdly cheap investment for them to help with the quality of Linux on ARM / RISC-V / POWER / etc.