Linux's 32-Bit Kernel Has Been Buggy Since Being Mitigated For Meltdown

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux's 32-Bit Kernel Has Been Buggy Since Being Mitigated For Meltdown

Whether you like it or not, the Linux kernel's x86 32-bit support has already begun suffering some minor forms of bit rot. Most kernel developers are no longer actively testing x86-32 and distribution vendors are beginning to drop 32-bit support. The latest example of x86 32-bit's effectively demoted state is some buggy undefined behavior functionality living within the mainline kernel for the past year since the Meltdown mitigations landed...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-32-Bit-KPTI-Bug-Fix

[Guest]

This is kind of sad.

The weird thing is that I've never ran into this issue on my Celeron M machine, and I've been using it as work as a barrier server, so it runs just as long as my workstation does.

[Wojcian]

Sorry for off topic, but there's a huge performance gain with allocating a disk space in Steam under Linux. It takes few seconds now to prepare space for ~50GB. While on Windows 7 it's taking minutes and makes Windows crawl. Kernel 5.2.1 (io_uring maybe?). Both steam versions should be the same, but I'll check letter.

[Azrael5]

Nowadays, 32bit is bugged because it is 32bit.

[starshipeleven]

Nowadays, 32bit is bugged because it is 32bit.

*obsolete for desktop/server

[DebianXFCE Jr]

*obsolete for desktop/server

Obsolete for who?

[aufkrawall]

Sorry for off topic, but there's a huge performance gain with allocating a disk space in Steam under Linux. It takes few seconds now to prepare space for ~50GB. While on Windows 7 it's taking minutes and makes Windows crawl. Kernel 5.2.1 (io_uring maybe?). Both steam versions should be the same, but I'll check letter.

I think you need a relatively recent SSD to make quick pre-allocation work with NTFS & native Windows.

[DebianXFCE Jr]

Nowadays, 32bit is bugged because it is 32bit.

True. The story is the same as with windows: "We need future! And future is in 64bits." I still have one pc with cpu from 2006. 64bit windows kills that platform where same architecture but on Linux runs flawlessly. Maybe that's why I don't think that 32bit is done atm. Or maybe it's just pragmatism. For ordinary users 32 is enough. Why someone would need 64 bit for browsing internet, sending mails, or periodically using office suite? Give me a break.

[skeevy420]

*obsolete for desktop/server

I wish we had a strike out line. The "FTFM" quotes like this would be easier to figure out since wouldn't have to assume to swap bugged... with obsolete...

[skeevy420]

True. The story is the same as with windows: "We need future! And future is in 64bits." I still have one pc with cpu from 2006. 64bit windows kills that platform where same architecture but on Linux runs flawlessly. Maybe that's why I don't think that 32bit is done atm. Or maybe it's just pragmatism. For ordinary users 32 is enough. Why someone would need 64 bit for browsing internet, sending mails, or periodically using office suite? Give me a break.

For any one of those programs or processes, we don't. When browsing the internet with 23 tabs over three windows, a media server in the background...hold up, I gotta take this Skype...crap, bossman needs some stuff drafted so now so I'm gonna switch to my KDE work activity so now, in addition to what was listed before, we also have an office suite, another FF window full of research tabs, GIMP to update the logos to the new color scheme, a team viewer so that dickhead boss can micromanage me, Steam just pulled in some updates, and Clementine so I can listen to some music while working with ProjectM running so I have something interesting to look at when I zone out and have to reboot the brain to think.

When listing one or two programs, it's easy to make the why do we need 64 bit case. When listing an actual workload, 32 bit just isn't up to par in regards to assloads of multitasking.