
Among the pull requests sent in today by Ingo Molnar, some of the code changes contained within include:
- The x86/microcode pull reworks the Intel microcode loader. The Intel microcode loader now operates in a manner more similar to AMD's microcode loader and leads to fixing some kernel bugs plus a slightly more unified/simpler design.
- The x86/cpu pull has some AMD CPU topology enhancements. The code is cleaned-up for current AMD CPUs but also is prep work for Family 17 hardware. AMD Family 17h is the highly anticipated Zen.
- The x86/asm code has two new Intel AVX512 features: AVX512IFMA and AVX512VBMI. There is also more copy-user unification, entry code Assembly macros have been simplified, call stack dumping/printing improvements, and more.
- The RAS changes have various AMD northbridge code changes, including prep work for Family 17h (Zen) CPUs.
- The perf changes include JSON hardware event tables for Intel/POWER8 CPUs, perf c2c support for providing shared data C2C/HITM analysis, and more.
- The locking changes include vCPU preemption support, micro-optimizations for some mutexes, and more.
Seeing several AMD Family 17h (Zen) code references in these pulls and elsewhere for Linux 4.10 makes me wonder about the current level of hardware support for these long-awaited AMD CPUs that will finally launch soon. Linux 4.10 will end up shipping after Zen CPUs begin shipping and curious how well Zen works on pre-4.10 kernels. Anyhow, once AMD Zen ships, there will be Linux benchmarks on Phoronix.
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