Many Intel Bay Trail Devices Have Been Borked On Linux For The Past Year

[asdfblah]

Would netconsole be useful for tracking down this bug?

[emblemparade]

OMG. This must be the bug I've been having! It's been such a nightmare to debug, and I tried so many different things, including replacing the SSD. Only after installed Windows 10 in dual boot on the machine, which did not freeze, did I realize that it was a Linux-specific issues. I even tried multiple Linux installs ... I wasted so much time on this, and it seems that many people have, too.

[andre30correia]

OMG. This must be the bug I've been having! It's been such a nightmare to debug, and I tried so many different things, including replacing the SSD. Only after installed Windows 10 in dual boot on the machine, which did not freeze, did I realize that it was a Linux-specific issues. I even tried multiple Linux installs ... I wasted so much time on this, and it seems that many people have, too.

What have this atom? Powervr or intel? I have some freezes
with chromium 48 and x1.17. When i upgrade to x1.18 the problem disapear

[c117152]

The really infuriating thing is that all those Chinese OEMs that released devices advertising Linux and Android support were signed NDAs forbidding them from explaining people that it's Intel's fault. So, small companies have been silently taking the heat for Intel over this for over a year or two now.

And I can't help think this is a deliberate attempt by WinTel to boost Win10 sales by preventing cheap linux and android Nettops and Minipcs from competing through sabotaging the linux kernel. This has been ongoing for over a year now but there's also the distinct lack of HDMI audio on both Bay Trail and Cherry Trail and the lack of popularly used mainlined WiFi drivers for the Atom series that together looks very suspicious.

Another reason to buy ARM and AMD whenever possible.

[andreano]

I got random hangs on Core 2 Duo when the nohz kernel feature was introduced. Still not fixed. The hangs are of such a nature that the mouse pointer needs to be kept in motion (unhanging the kernel via interrupts) in order for any process to run.

I tried bisecting and failed, because the problem got gradually more difficult to reproduce as I went back in history. Frustrating, since it would reproduce in milliseconds on a modern kernel.

[emblemparade]

When i upgrade to x1.18 the problem disapear

Thanks for the tip! I even tried Ubuntu 16.04 beta1, and still got a freeze. But I think that was before X1.18 got added... Hopefully this workaround works for me, and if not perhaps the final release of Ubuntu 16.04 will

[andreano]

I wish someone could compile a big bunch of correctness tests, so interested people could test hardware that they care about and report bugs early. Bonus points for making a centralized overview of problems (akin to PTS + openbenchmarking.org). If it gains momentum, I think distros, developers and users alike should have incentives for contributing and maintaining tests.

[Michael]

I wish someone could compile a big bunch of correctness tests, so interested people could test hardware that they care about and report bugs early. Bonus points for making a centralized overview of problems (akin to PTS + openbenchmarking.org). If it gains momentum, I think distros, developers and users alike should have incentives for contributing and maintaining tests.

It'd be straightforward to implement using PTS and can already be done. While what I cover most on Phoronix.com are just performance tests, PTS/OB/Phoromatic has full support for functionality tests (e.g. correct SMART disk information and hardware sensors or not), correct image rendering or not, etc.

[Ancurio]

As a Bay Trail user, I haven't experienced any such freezes yet (thank god, that must be a nightmare), but my WiFi does get consistently worse as the laptop runs for a couple hours, until it completely fails. And rebooting always fixes it immediately, so it's not the network itself.

[torsionbar28]

My own experience with Intel graphics isn't too great: You can't use any modern Linux distro on a 5 year old laptop I have here because rendering a composited desktop can cause Xorg to freeze (updated to 14.04 from Ubuntu 12.04, bug report was a few years old without any signs of Intel working on it. A passively cooled low end AMD card fixed the issue.). And my haswell laptop is only completely stable since a few months ago.

I'm running kernel 4.4.4 with x.org 1.15 on an intel SU9400 (core 2 duo dell E4200 laptop from late 2008) with i915 graphics and it runs great. No issues, no hacks or workarounds, and it runs so cool the cpu fan rarely even comes on. Compiz desktop cube and wobbly windows are smooth as silk.

I think the problems must be only with newer intel hardware.