A Few More Linux Kernel Patches Floated This Week For AMD Family 19h (Zen 3)

[phoronix]

Phoronix: A Few More Linux Kernel Patches Floated This Week For AMD Family 19h (Zen 3)

Going back to the start of 2020 we've been seeing a few patches here and there around AMD Family 19h, almost certainly Zen 3. That patch work has continued with a few more bits out this week while hopefully more bring-up is on the horizon ahead of the Linux 5.7 merge window opening in just over one month's time...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-Family-19h-Perf-Uncore

[ms178]

"Following the MCE issue with Threadripper 3, the RdRand issue with the initial Zen 2 CPUs, and other past launch gotchas, it would be quite refreshing to see the Linux kernel already fit and good to go for reliable Zen 3 support on launch day without any brown paper bag issues." - considering their past track record, don't count on it.

[Hibbelharry]

I'm not to worried about that issues, because really most of them are fixed in a short time manner. Don't forget: AMD is really changing the industry in a lot of ways, with their heavy multicore liftings. On the other side I don't see any real progress at intel, so they launch the same hardware again..and again...and again, which will naturally cause less pain.

[birdie]

Meanwhile even Zen 2 CPUs are not properly supported under Linux. So much for AMD's open source friendliness.

Not to mention that the k10temp driver reports 1/3 of data which HWiNFO64 is able to extract.

"Yay, buy AMD", you can hear from every corner of the Internet. Then you buy it. Then you realize it's far from perfect and strangely Intel/NVIDIA are not so bad.

[lem79]

"Yay, buy AMD", you can here from ever corner of the Internet. Then you buy it. Then you realize it's far from perfect and strangely Intel/NVIDIA are not so bad.

Until you have Intel+nVidia in a laptop... ugh. Never again.

[birdie]

Until you have Intel+nVidia in a laptop... ugh. Never again.

Just on observation: laptops with discrete NVIDIA graphics are sold with Windows preinstalled. Always. If you deliberately install an unsupported OS, then it's only your fault.

And that kinda invalidated the years long "F you NVIDIA" movement started after a comment from Linus Torvalds who replied to a woman who couldn't make her laptop with discrete NVIDIA graphics work under Linux. Yeah, she created a problem for herself, Linus kinda sorta shared her sentiment, the whole Linux community decided to demonize NVIDIA. Wow. So intelligent. So thoughtful.

Bloody rampant fanboys. Show me a single sentence on NVIDIA's website where they recommend Linux to be installed on laptops with NVIDIA GPUs.

[wizard69]

Meanwhile even Zen 2 CPUs are not properly supported under Linux. So much for AMD's open source friendliness.

That so called bug report is pure garbage. It reflects a personal opinion that the software should work a certain way when it has never supported what the poster wants.

Not to mention that the k10temp driver reports 1/3 of data which HWiNFO64 is able to extract.

You might get more traction on this issue some place else. The problem is real but I suspect few people in high places at AMD read Phoronix. They do read the /AMD reddit though. Frankly I'd prefer that AMD simply publish the data that is needed to support their CPU's.

"Yay, buy AMD", you can hear from every corner of the Internet. Then you buy it. Then you realize it's far from perfect and strangely Intel/NVIDIA are not so bad.

Again garbage! I can make a very good argument that AMD's processors are more perfect than anything Intel is selling at the moment. More importantly hardware has never been perfect and likely never will be. The only thing of importance is that I can sit in front of my workstation and get work done or goof off like I'm doing now. I can do that on a machine that leads performance wise and is still cost effective.

[wizard69]

Just on observation: laptops with discrete NVIDIA graphics are sold with Windows preinstalled. Always. If you deliberately install an unsupported OS, then it's only your fault.

I hope you realize that if the rest of the world used your logic we wouldn't have Linux today nor any of the other OS's out there.

And that kinda invalidated the years long "F you NVIDIA" movement started after a comment from Linus Torvalds who replied to a woman who couldn't make her laptop with discrete NVIDIA graphics work under Linux. Yeah, she created a problem for herself, Linus kinda sorta shared her sentiment, the whole Linux community decided to demonize NVIDIA. Wow. So intelligent. So thoughtful.

Rational discussion has never worked with NVida so yes they can go to hell.

Bloody rampant fanboys. Show me a single sentence on NVIDIA's website where they recommend Linux to be installed on laptops with NVIDIA GPUs.

NVida is the one responsible for poor laptops support under Linux and thus deserves all the grief they get.

[Space Heater]

Don't forget: AMD is really changing the industry in a lot of ways, with their heavy multicore liftings.

Just because AMD processors are currently better than Intel's doesn't mean that AMD is somehow above criticism.

[JustRob]

It can work basically one of two ways.

1. People can write a bunch of software however they want and expect people to build hardware that will run it.

2. People can build hardware which is expected to support a particular architecture and expect people to write software that runs on it.

Now if only the critics who write the software end users who are able to choose both the software and hardware were capable of building the hardware, in some cases writing better code, then some of the criticisms voiced above would hold greater weight.

Hardware undergoes extensive testing and trials before going out to the general public, occasionally there's a blatant blunder and less frequently (though not recently) a blunder that reaches back for years. It's up to everyone involved in the early trials to flesh out the bugs, and then (only then) for the hardware manufacturers to fix them.

Neither bug free hardware nor software is easy to create and while we understand the end-user's point, that they just want it to work, one should appreciate how far we've come; that the phone in your pocket (and some people's wrist watches) are more advanced than the computers that got mankind to the moon.