- Ubuntu Linux Squeezes ~20% More Performance Than Windows 11 On New AMD Zen 4 Threadripper Review Phoronix
- Ubuntu runs 20% faster than Windows 11 on AMD’s new 96-core Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX, demonstrating once more that Linux loves high core count CPUs Tom’s Hardware
- AMD’s 96-Core Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX Hits 6.0 GHz on All Cores with LN2 AnandTech
- Extreme Overclocking with Liquid Nitrogen – AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 Series StorageReview.com
- AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7980X Review A Funky Workstation CPU Some Will LOVE ServeTheHome
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Linux
Steam On Linux Metrics End Out 2022 With Some Odd Numbers
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Valve has just published the Steam Survey results for December 2022 that come in at a bit of a surprise.
As published in early December and remained the numbers up until today, the November 2022 metrics put Steam on Linux at a 1.44% marketshare as a 0.16% increase over October. The November results pointed toward gains in the Linux marketshare as a result of increased Steam Deck usage based on the SteamOS Holo and AMD Custom GPU 0405 data points.
Steam Linux percentages for November 2022.
Steam Linux percentages for December 2022 with a “weird” percentage increase for month-over-month.
But making things odd is the December 2022 report putting the Linux marketshare up 0.10%, but the percentage marketshare at 1.38%… Or 0.06% lower than than November’s numbers. So it’s yet another case of re-calculated numbers or other oddities from the Steam Survey results.
The original November data put macOS at 2.45% and Windows at 96.11% while the newly-published December data has Windows at 96.15% with a reported 0.35% decline and macOS at a 0.25% increase to 2.48%. Again, not aligning at all from Valve’s prior month data.
Making the December numbers all the more odd is that when pulling up the Linux-only survey data it shows a 0.91% decline for SteamOS Holo (though a 0.77% increase to the Flatpak Steam), the AMD CPU marketshare falling by 0.84%, and the AMD Custom GPU 0405 percentage falling by 0.90%. Or in other words, the Steam Deck marketshare of Linux gamers contracting by just under 1% for the month of December. That’s rather unusual considering the success of the Steam Deck and Valve continuing to ship vastly more units each week and it being the main driver right now for Linux gaming adoption.
So either the random element of the Steam Survey selection was rather bonkers for December or there is other odd things happening with the Steam Survey that seem to happen every so often. We’ll see if the numbers get revised in the days ahead while for now you can find the current data at SteamPowered.com.
AMD Radeon Graphics Cards Offer Better Performance In Windows 11 Vs Linux 6.2
This year has seen multiple updates to the Linux operating system from AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA when it comes to covering graphics cards in the open-source kernel or improvements in processing power, as well as video codecs, leaks of new technology, and more. That being said, the most recent tests conducted by the Linux Hardware editor and reviewer of the website Phoronix — as well as an entrepreneur, Linux software engineer, and analyst — Michael Larabel, shed light on the AMD Radeon Gaming performance in Windows 11 and Ubuntu Linux environments.
Windows 11 OS Offers Best Graphics Performance For AMD Radeon GPUs Vs Linux 6.2
Larabel used several games available on PC and Linux operating systems. The games were chosen by titles that worked exceptionally well on Steam Play in Linux compared to the Windows 11 experience. In the coming days, Larabel plans to place Intel and NVIDIA under similar tests to find out what performs better, especially entering a new year. Today’s focus is on AMD.
The game titles handpicked by Larabel were:
The Phoronix editor also chose three benchmarks for the tests. The first test handles better in Vulkan and OpenGL, while the second and third from UNIGINE are better equipped for OpenGL.
Yesterday, we reported that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards were going through isolated but growing issues with overheating and losing performance because of the temperature spikes. It will be interesting to see if this will affect performance. Larabel utilized the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and the Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs for this testing.
The Windows operating system used for testing is Windows 11 Pro Edition, which he mentions was updated with the current drivers available. In contrast, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT driver used is the Adrenalin 22.11.2 Recommended WHQL driver, and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTDX used Adrenalin 22.12.2. The difference between the two drivers is that the 22.11.2 Recommended driver offers the latest updates for Navi 2 GPUs, while the 22.12.2 driver offers the latest RDNA 3 drivers.
With Linux, in Ubuntu 22.10, Larabel used Linux 6.2-rc1 alongside Mesa 23.0-devel, offering the best support for RDNA 2 and 3 architectures. The processor utilized for the testing is Intel’s i9-13900K CPU with 32GB DDR5-6000 memory on an ASUS PRIME Z790-P WIFI mobo and Solidigm’s P44 PRO 2 TB NVMe solid state drive.
Hitman 3 showed higher gains with Windows 11 Pro and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, whereas the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT led close to the same performance on Steam Play in Linux and the standard Windows operating system (Windows was seven frames per second faster). The same is said for both frame time and resolution while stressing the game in a 4K environment.
Left 4 Dead 2 was the opposite, with the OpenGL rendering showing a better FPS on both graphics cards from AMD than in Windows 11 Pro. However, Portal 2 jumped back into Windows with both graphics cards, but Linux was a close competition on the newest GPU from AMD. Quake II RTX, especially having NVIDIA-centric ray tracing, was almost identical in Windows and Linux, with ray tracing activated showing the most similarities with it deactivated. Linux did pull slightly ahead of both graphics card tests in the game for the RADV ray tracing driver, which shows the amount of work placed into the compatibility and performance of the driver over the last year. But, once again, in 4K resolution tests, Windows 11 Pro outshined Ubuntu. Strange Brigade also favored Windows 11 Pro over Ubuntu Linux and X-Plane 12.
GravityMark 1.72 benchmarking allowed for the Ubuntu Linux graphics to outshine Windows 11 Pro most of the time, thanks to the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver and Vulkan driver support, including 4K resolution settings. Larabel notes that the UNIGINE Heaven benchmark is slowly becoming outdated but remains relatively faithful to OpenGL native benchmarking. Windows 11 did show the most considerable improvement on the Heaven benchmark tests but flipped in the Superposition benchmarks, only gaining a slight lead over Windows.
Next for the Phoronix editor will be Intel Arc Graphics and NVIDIA’s newer RTX 40 series GPUs in the coming days. You can check all benchmark results on his Phoronix website, and you can check out his other projects on his professional portfolio site, MichaelLarabel.com.
News Sources: Phoronix, UNIGINE Benchmarks
The 5 Best Linux Distros of 2022
In this post I look back at the best Linux distros of 2022 — and spoiler: they’re not all Ubuntu-based!
I know: I make the same joke every year I do this. But hey: I write about Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu. You may expect me to keep it all about Ubuntu. But the Linux ecosystem? It’s more than just Ubuntu. There are a ton of top-tier Linux distros out there deserving of praise, celebration, and recognition. This list is my small way of giving ’em that!
That said, what follows is not a posit of superiority, nor a ranking of importance. It’s just me, a person, giving a shoutout to some of the year’s best Linux releases. Is it comprehensive? No. And it’s also not a critique, so if an OS you love isn’t featured below the omission is not because I think it’s awful!
With the SEO gods (hopefully) satiated by that lengthy introduction, lets look at my top 5 Linux distros of 2022!
1. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
Arguably the best Linux distro release of the year for me was Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, which arrived back in April.
Long-term support releases are always big deal as tens of millions of people use them. Thankfully, Ubuntu’s dedicated developers dished out a release worthy of the attention.
Snap qualms aside (see the video) the Jammy Jellyfish bought GNOME Shell 42, configurable accent colours, Wayland by default, new multitasking options, new dock options, a better desktop icons extension, Linux kernel 5.15, Raspberry Pi 4 support. Plus reams upon reams (upon reams etc) of updated apps, tooling, and packages.
Though I am an interim release rider — always have been, probably always will be — most folks stick with an LTS release. And with Ubuntu 22.04 they get a release that’s genuinely good enough to be used for the duration of its support period, with no FOMO.
2. Fedora Workstation 37
Fedora Workstation is a flagship desktop Linux distro for good reason: it’s robust, it’s reliable, it’s impeccably produced — it distils what a lot of folks seek most: a “pure” GNOME experience, delivered as devs intend, atop a strong and stable base.
Autumn’s offer of Fedora 37 Workstation features GNOME 43 – an update that majorly improves the GNOME Shell user experience with Quick Settings. There’s also a more-featured Files rebuilt in GTK4/libadwaita; a revamped Calendar app; a Device Security panel; Raspberry Pi 4 support; GRUB instead of syslinux on BIOS; and more.
Folk often overlook Fedora Workstation because, as Linux distros go, it’s rather understated, unassuming, and drama-free. Yet, it is a finessed and functional distro that forgoes fancy flourishes to focus entirely on its performance, its integration, and its cohesion.
If you’ve never tried Fedora you’re missing out, so sort it!
3. Manjaro 22.0 ‘Sikaris’
That a version of Manjaro had to feature in this list was obvious. And as Arch-based Linux distros go Manjaro is one of the best. Oh, I know: there is chatter around Manjaro within the wider Linux community but for me, those storms-in-a-tea-cup never impact on the quality (or should that be flavour ☕️) of the distro itself.
Manjaro 22.0 ‘Sikaris’ isn’t just a distro: it’s an experience
Exemplifying that is the Manjaro 22.0 release put out in December. The “main” favour with KDE Plasma serves up a flawless experience. Everything from the shell to the package manager to bespoke touches and apps are cohesive, considered, and choreographed.
Manjaro 22.0 isn’t just a distro, it’s an experience.
Manjaro’s desktop-specific “editions” are also terrifically compiled. They never feel like Manjaro plus Xfce, plus GNOME, etc. Each is a carefully curated and beautifully integrated showcase of their respective desktop’s strengths — or to put it in less flowery terms: regardless of which Manjaro edition you pick, it always feels like the MAIN one.
Plus, the Manjaro community is large and active. For any issue that arises chances are I can find a Manjaro forum post about it (or someone willing to point me in the direction of a solution). Community is an important aspect of any distro. The Linux kernel is the heart of most distros but its community that is the lifeblood.
Manjaro is the full package, and a definite distro of the year.
4. Linux Mint 21
Linux Mint 21.1 is the newer and more visually interesting (cf. new applets and updated artwork) update, the original Linux Mint 21 release made the biggest impact this year, of the two.
The oft-promoted “newbie” distro, Linux Mint’s core aims of offering a light and familiar computing experience that stays out of the way continues to resonate with users in tune with the Windows way of working.
Linux Mint 21 “Cinnamon” is lightweight and efficient, making it a good choice on lower end hardware and older machines. As well as being easy to use, Linux Mint ships with an interesting selection of pre-installed software that aims to cover most users’ needs, including some homegrown apps that are rather special.
Overall, Linux Mint 21 is the perfect choice for users wanting a reliable and easy-to-use operating system.
5. Ubuntu 22.10
Ubuntu twice in one list?! It’s a bit much, but the inclusion of PipeWire means I’m obliged to to include 22.10. Honestly, it’s in my contract as editor of this site —What? Yes, I wrote the contract myself… Why’d you ask?
But seriously, Ubuntu 22.10’s aforementioned addition of PipeWire (though overdue) means most Bluetooth audio devices now “just work” with Ubuntu. That coupled with the audio device switcher in GNOME’s Quick Settings means Ubuntu 22.10 hits the right note with modern audio equipment.
Secondly, the uplift in shipping GNOME 43 and a litany of libadwaita ports meant the Kinetic Kudu arrived on the scene with a real dynamism — it was one of the earliest ways to try GNOME 43, for context — that has been missing since the early Unity days.
Lastly, and without a doubt the most important, critical, and distro-defining element was the Kinetic Kudu mascot wallpaper – the best default Ubuntu wallpaper since the Hardy Heron, imo.
Honourable Mentions
Limiting my selection to 5 was necessary otherwise this would’ve just been a very long list of every Linux distro that put out an update over the past 12 months.
A few extra shoutouts: the recent EndeavourOS ‘Cassini’ release makes the ideal hop-on point for anyone wanting to ride a reliable rolling-release distro. The latest Zorin OS is based on an older Ubuntu base but the out-of-the-box wow-factor remains invigorating for users new to Linux.
Gamers, programmers, and creators adore Pop!_OS 22.04, which is the final version of System76’s distro to ship with GNOME Shell by default; and there’s been a lot of love around the lightweight Linux distro MX Linux which injects new life into older hardware.
And a shout out has to go to SteamOS, the Arch-based distro Valve preload on the Steamdeck console.
Over to You
So that’s my list of best desktop Linux releases for 2022. I tried to weigh up the various feature sets, changes, and key technologies when selecting them, and keep in mind the appeal and popularity. Fwiw, MX Linux came *so* close to taking a spot — expect to hear more about that and other distros over on our sister site omg! linux.
Anyway, who the fudge cares what I think?!
I want to hear your distro releases pick from the past twelve months. So dive down in the comments (and tip: the “old” Disqus theme is available to select from the options again, yay). Try to keep takes positive where possible by focusing on the distros and developments you do like rather than the ones you don’t.
Linux Kernel 6.1 Released, This is What’s New
Linus Torvalds is giving Santa Claus competition as the FOSS-lovin’ Finn is putting the best possible present under the tree this festive season: a brand new Linux kernel.
Yes, Linux kernel 6.1 is here, ready to power the world’s servers, desktops, smartphones, switches, routers, and everything in between. Announcing the arrival on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, Linus Torvalds says: “So here we are, a week late, but last week was nice and slow, and I’m much happier about the state of 6.1 than I was a couple of weeks ago”.
The Linux kernel is developed and maintained by a worldwide community of engineers and enthusiasts. While a great number of those who contribute to the Linux kernel as part of their day job others choose to do so in their free time, of their own accord, and on their own terms.
Let’s take a closer look at what those awesome folks have been up to recently…
Linux Kernel 6.1 Features
A major addition to Linux 6.1 is mainline (experimental) support for Rust, the “multi-paradigm, general-purpose programming language” snowballing momentum across the open source landscape. Though small, this initial batch of bringup makes good on the ambition of letting kernel devs write kernel code in Rust.
Another addition to Linux kernel 6.1 is Multi-Generational Least-Recently-Used (aka MG-LRU; though this not yet enabled by default). To quote in-kernel documentation, this memory-minded feature: “…optimizes page reclaim and improves performance under memory pressure” — hey: better performance is always welcome.
Btrfs user? Linux 6.1 includes a “bunch of performance improvements” to the Btrfs file system performance, including a new block group tree to speed up mount on large filesystems, additional io_uring integration, tweaked sysfs exports; and “outstanding FIEMAP speed improvement”.
Elsewhere, the erofs filesystem is now able to share duplicated data across filesystems; and the EXT4 filesystem benefits from a flurry of fixes, cleanups, and tuneups, the latter including no longer trying to prefetch block allocation bitmaps for read-only file systems.
Also, the PinePhone Pro is now able to run off the mainline Linux 6.1 kernel, as can a suite of older Android smartphones including the Sony Xperia 1 IV, and the Samsung Galaxy E5, E7, and Grand Max. Additionally, there’s now an input driver for the PinePhone keyboard case.
The Nintendo HID driver is now so polished that “cheap clone” controllers will work with it; and the Logitech driver now enables HID++ usage for all Bluetooth devices and, as Phoronix reports, can auto-detect high resolution scrolling ability if supported.
A stack of new sound hardware support ships with Linux 6.1, including initial work for sound support on Apple Silico, support for AMD Rembrandt with the Sound Open Firmware (SOF), and support for audio on the Mediatek MT8186 SoC expected to feature in new Chromebooks.
Several new devices gain support from the kernel XPad input driver, including Xbox One Elite paddles on the original Elite and the Elite series 2.
Other devices supported include the Hori Fighting Commander ONE gamepad (including in Xbox mode), the 8BitDo Pro 2 wired controller, and a swathe of Wooting keyboards, including the Wooting One, Two, Two HE and 60HE.
Kernel 6.1 also includes the usual sort of foundation-laying for next-gen CPUs and GPUs. Work in 6.1 includes new driver code for the AMD platform management framework on future Ryzen chips; plumbing for Intel ‘Meteor Lake’ 5nm chips; and continued effort on Intel Arc Graphics DG2/Alchemist.
Other changes:
- Kernel Memory Sanitizer (KMSAN) merged
- More LoongArch CPU support
- Kernel can decompress + launch in architecture-agnostic way on EFI systems
- Faster Intel Memory error decoding via EDAC driver
- Maple Tree data structure support
- New security controls on the ability to create user namespaces
- Kernel will print CPU core where segmentation fault occurs
Overall, Linux kernel 6.1 offers a range of new features and improvements that enhance the performance and security of Linux-based systems. These improvements make Linux an even more powerful and flexible operating system, capable of meeting the demands of a wide range of applications and users.
Want even more info on the latest release? Glance at Phoronix’s feature overview for top-level info, or dive in to the details with the LWN merge report 1 and LWN merge report 2.
Getting Linux 6.1
Linux 6.1 is available to download as source code right now, which you can compile by hand on your distro of choice? Not up for that? Wait for your distro maintainer to package the do the half graft instead.
While some distros (like Arch) package new Linux kernel releases and push them out to users as updates, Ubuntu does not. As a fixed-release distro new kernel releases only ship in new releases, though LTS releases do get periodic new kernel updates back-ported from later releases.
You can try Canonical’s mainline repo to install Linux 6.1 on Ubuntu based distros. This is NOT recommended. Mainline builds do not come with any warranty, support, or testing to ensure they’re issue-free. Use as your own risk.
Linux 6.1 Released With MGLRU, Initial Rust Code
Linus Torvalds just released Linux 6.1 as stable!
Linux 6.1 integrates the exciting Multi-Gen LRU (MGLRU) overhaul of the page reclamation code, the initial Rust programming language support though still being built up, the new AMD Platform Management Framework, a variety of open-source graphics driver improvements, Btrfs performance optimizations, the Kernel Memory Sanitizer, introduction of the Maple Tree data structure, and a lot of other hardware driver work. See my Linux 6.1 feature overview for a more extensive list at all of the prominent kernel changes this round.
Now onward to the very exciting Linux 6.2 merge window.
Linus Torvalds wrote in today’s v6.1 release announcement:
So here we are, a week late, but last week was nice and slow, and I’m
much happier about the state of 6.1 than I was a couple of weeks ago
when things didn’t seem to be slowing down.Of course, that means that now we have the merge window from hell,
just before the holidays, with me having some pre-holiday travel
coming up too. So while delaying things for a week was the right thing
to do, it does make the timing for the 6.2 merge window awkward.
Linux 6.1 Lands Revert For “Huge Performance Regressions” From Three Lines Of Code
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Ahead of the Linux 6.1-rc8 kernel that Linus Torvalds is expected to issue shortly rather than going straight to Linux 6.1 stable, a revert for a small change leading to “huge performance regressions” in select areas has fortunately been caught and reverted.
For the Linux 6.1 merge window was a memory management change to align larger anonymous mappings to THP boundaries. The commit reasoned:
“Align larger anonymous memory mappings on THP boundaries by going through thp_get_unmapped_area if THPs are enabled for the current process.
With this patch, larger anonymous mappings are now THP aligned. When a malloc library allocates a 2MB or larger arena, that arena can now be mapped with THPs right from the start, which can result in better TLB hit rates and execution time.”
But it turned out that the three lines of code changed ended up regressing the Linux 6.1 kernel performance in some areas.
Intel’s kernel testing found a 95% regression in one of the will-it-scale benchmarks that was traced back to that change. That benchmark isn’t particularly real-world but it does raise concerns over what other (real-world) user-space workloads may also be impacted too that haven’t yet been tested on the Linux 6.1 development builds.
Linux developer Nathan Chancellor also reported a big regression in kernel build times from that original change. For building out all of his kernel builds on a Threadripper 3990X workstation, it went from 2 hours and 20 minutes to then over 3 hours… Or for a x86_64 allmodconfig build, from 318 seconds to 406 seconds. Quite a significant slowdown in kernel build times, in addition to the run-time performance hit noted by Intel testing. Meanwhile the original change had helped with GCC-based kernel build times by making it about 2% faster.
Thus for now Linus Torvalds decided to revert the 3 line patch to deal with what he calls the “huge performance regressions” until this situation can be better sorted out to avoid the significant regressions.
Linux 6.1-rc2 Released: It’s “Unusually Large”
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Linus Torvalds just released the Linux 6.1-rc2 kernel, which he characterized as “unusually large” in what started off as a quiet week.
Linux 6.1-rc2 ended up being much larger than usual due to some of the media subsystem’s feature material having inadvertently not having been pulled during the merge window. But since the code was in linux-next and was a Git mistake, Linus Torvalds pulled the rest of the media subsystem updates this week.
Plus there are various other fixes that landed in Linux 6.1-rc2 like the per-thread AMD CPU microcode loading change and various other fallout addressed now that more developers and testers are trying out this fresh Linux 6.1 code.
“Hmm. Usually rc2 is a pretty quiet week, and it mostly started out that way too, but then things took a turn for the strange. End result: 6.1-rc2 ended up being unusually large.”
More of Linus Torvalds’ commentary about 6.1-rc2 can be read via his release announcement.
See my Linux 6.1 feature overview to learn more about all of the big changes coming with this kernel, which will likely end up being this year’s Long-Term Support (LTS) kernel series once it debuts as stable in December.
20-year-old Linux workaround is still slowing down AMD systems
Enlarge / A second-generation Epyc server chip from AMD, one that may have been running 2002-era Linux code slowing it down.
Getty Images
AMD has come a long way since 2002, but the Linux kernel still treats modern Threadrippers like Athlon-era systems—at least in one potentially lag-inducing respect.
AMD engineer Prateek Nayak recently submitted a patch to Linux’s processor idle drivers that would “skip dummy wait for processors based on the Zen microarchitecture.” When ACPI support was added to the Linux kernel in 2002—written by Andy Grover, committed by Linus Torvalds—it included a “dummy wait op.” The system essentially read data with no purpose other than delaying the next instruction until the CPU could fully stop with the STPCLK# command. This allowed for some power saving and compatibility during the early days of ACPI implementation when some chipsets wouldn’t move to an idle state when one would expect it.
But today’s Zen-based AMD chips don’t need this workaround, and, as Nayak writes, it’s hurting them, at least in specific workloads on Linux. Testing with instruction-based sampling (IBS) workloads shows that “a significant amount of time is spent in the dummy op, which incorrectly gets accounted as C-State residency.” The CPU, seeing all this low-effort dummy work, can push into deeper, slower C-State, which then makes the CPU take longer to “wake up,” especially on jobs that require lots of switching between busy and idle states.
Nayak ran tests in tbench on a dual-socket Zen3 system against the baseline Linux kernel, a kernel with the C2 state entirely disabled, and a kernel with the dummy wait operation patched out. His patched version saw a 1,390 percent increase in minimum MB/s throughput and a 51 percent increase in mean MB/s over the baseline kernel, often just a little behind having C2 disabled entirely.
Intel systems have avoided AMD’s legacy curse, as they use an MWAIT-based system for at least a decade, per the Phoronix blog. That led to an urgent patch submitted by Dave Hansen of Intel. His solution was to limit “dummy wait” to Intel systems, where it would not affect “remotely modern Intel systems,” and add comments to the kernel’s idle drivers that spell out what’s happening—and encourage those reading to “consider moving your system to a more modern idle mechanism.”
If an urgent patch removing or limiting “dummy wait” is submitted this week, it could likely make the Linux 6.0 kernel, which Torvalds expects to ship next week.
Linux 6.0-rc1 Released With Exciting Performance Optimizations, New Hardware Support
After the two week long merge window, Linus Torvalds this afternoon released the first release candidate of Linux 6.0. Over the next roughly two months the Linux 6.0 kernel will stabilize but already from my early testing on various systems it is in nice shape and the features and performance are looking great.
Linux 6.0 is looking very good on the performance front with seeing great uplift on high-end Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC servers as well as AMD Threadripper while I’ll have more desktop/laptop tests from Linux 6.0 over the weeks ahead. There has been some very nice and significant performance improvements.
Linus Torvalds codenamed Linux 6.0-rc1 the “Hurr durr I’ma ninja sloth” kernel.
I’ll have up my lengthy Linux 6.0 feature overview tomorrow, but here is a quick overview. Linux 6.0 brings continued driver additions for Intel Raptor Lake, new RISC-V extensions, support for setting the system hostname via the “hostname=” kernel parameter, AMD Automatic Mode Transition for Lenovo ThinkPad laptops, Intel Habana Labs Gaudi2 support, the HEVC/H.265 interface has been promoted to stable, the new AMD Raphael audio driver, some early work on Intel Meteor Lake support such as with audio, perf tooling for AMD Zen 4 IBS, Intel IPI virtualization for KVM, AMD x2AVIC for KVM, Intel SGX2 support, run-time verification for safety critical systems, Send Protocol v2 for Btrfs, big scheduler enhancements, more AMD Zen 4 preparations, continued AMD RDNA3 graphics enablement, and some very nice IO_uring improvements. That’s the quick overview but overall Linux 6.0 is a very exciting kernel!
Linux 6.0 is a big boy with having the greatest number of files changes and new lines added in quite a while… More than one million lines of code were added this cycle, in part due to auto-generated header files around new AMDGPU and Intel Habana Labs Gaudi2 support. In comparison the Linux 5.19 merge window saw 789k lines of new code. Linux 6.0 is going to be big.
For as exciting as Linux 6.0 changes are, there are a few features not merged this weekend… The Rust for Linux patches haven’t yet been merged… Hopefully next cycle. The performance-enhancing MGLRU work also didn’t make it this cycle nor the Maple Tree work, but the hope is both of those features should be ready for Linux 6.1. The Linux real-time “PREEMPT_RT” patches are also very close to the finish line but weren’t sent in either for v6.0.
Linus Torvalds is also aware of some recently brought up Linux kernel crashes that appear to be attributed to the VirtIO merge and is already being worked through. Hopefully that will all be in good shape for Linux 6.0-rc2 next weekend.
Linus wrote in the Linux 6.0-rc1 announcement:
I actually was hoping that we’d get some of the first rust infrastructure, and the multi-gen LRU VM, but neither of them happened this time around. There’s always more releases. But there’s a lot of continued development pretty much all over the place, with the “shortlog” being much too long to post and thus – as always for rc1 notices – below only contains my “merge log”. You can definitely get a kind of high-level overview by just scanning that, but obviously it’s worth once again pointing out that the people mentioned in the merge log are just the maintainers I pull from, and there’s more than 1700 developers involved when you start looking at the full details in the git tree.
Stay tuned for my Linux 6.0 feature write-up tomorrow and plenty of Linux 6.0 kernel benchmarks to come on Phoronix over the coming weeks. Linux 6.0 stable should be out around the end of September or early October.