[HN Gopher] Linux 6.11 Released
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       Linux 6.11 Released
        
       Author : jrepinc
       Score  : 240 points
       Date   : 2024-09-15 16:33 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lwn.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lwn.net)
        
       | unixhero wrote:
       | Rejoice!
       | 
       | Edit: These two items are huge! support for writing block drivers
       | in Rust, support for atomic write operations in the block layer,
        
       | ufo wrote:
       | Does anyone know how they'll implement the runtime constants?
        
       | vardump wrote:
       | Long way since Linux 3.11 for Workgroups [0]:
       | 
       | [0]: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/linux-
       | kernel-3-11-...
        
         | unethical_ban wrote:
         | Man, time flies. I remember Slashdot's thread announcing it.
         | 
         | Linux versioning now is the worst kind of arbitrary! It's the
         | web-browser "just iterate the number" method, but with the
         | appearance of semantic versioning.
        
           | fallingsquirrel wrote:
           | Linus does that on purpose, because he doesn't want people to
           | put undue importance on any particular release.
           | 
           | https://lwn.net/Articles/781206/
           | 
           | > I'd like to point out (yet again) that we don't do feature-
           | based releases, and that "5.0" doesn't mean anything more
           | than that the 4.x numbers started getting big enough that I
           | ran out of fingers and toes.
        
             | kabes wrote:
             | Then just an ever increasing number like most browser do
             | these days would make more sense.
        
               | meiraleal wrote:
               | What about he just continue doing what he is doing? We
               | are talking about the most succesful open source project
               | here
        
               | IshKebab wrote:
               | I'd argue KHTML could give Linux a run for its money for
               | that title.
        
               | fortyseven wrote:
               | I kind of like the year/release style. 2024.1, etc. Gives
               | you some context for how old/new it is at a glance.
        
       | marcodiego wrote:
       | Bets for 6.12: sched_ext, PREEMPT_RT anyone?
        
         | samtheprogram wrote:
         | PREEMPT_RT, please!!
        
         | cwillu wrote:
         | PREEMPT_RT would be a boon for audio/video work, hope it
         | finally goes in. Not everyone who needs it knows they need it,
         | let alone how to compile it, and having it in-tree would
         | massively simplify the process for distros to [re-]package a
         | proper RT kernel.
        
           | anthk wrote:
           | These kind of schedulers often harm servers' I/O usage. And
           | the opposite it's true too. Server based loads are bad for
           | multimedia/gaming desktops.
        
             | cwillu wrote:
             | Yes, that's why it's a config option; but if the code is in
             | the kernel a distro can package up a preempt-rt kernel by
             | flipping the config flag rather than maintaining an out-of-
             | tree patchset, which is a _much_ lower burden.
        
         | aseipp wrote:
         | There's already a series posted a week ago for 6.12 that will
         | ungate PREEMPT_RT on x86, ARM and RISC-V; it only modifies the
         | Kconfig entries to enable it[1]. So I'd say it's hardly a bet!
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://lwn.net/ml/all/20240906111841.562402-1-bigeasy@linut...
        
       | homebrewer wrote:
       | 6.10 (TEN, the previous one) has been a very problematic release
       | for me, with one desktop running into four major bugs in total:
       | three separate amdgpu bugs resulting in video corruption, hangs
       | and crashes, and now that I'm on 6.10.10 and those seem to be
       | fixed, the system intermittently refuses to come up from sleep
       | mode.
       | 
       | Anyone else having similar experience? This is the first time
       | something like that happened in a decade of using the latest
       | stable kernel release (in my experience, it's actually been
       | _stable_ for all that time except for 6.10).
        
         | mahkoh wrote:
         | I've had a few hard crashes (system freezes completely, ssh
         | does not work) over the last two weeks on 6.10.x kernels. I am
         | hoping that it is
         | https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/3142 (and not
         | hardware failure) but I've been unable to capture the kernel
         | panic if it does occur.
         | 
         | Never had such an issue before.
        
           | OvbiousError wrote:
           | Wow thanks for that link. I've had my machine crashing a
           | couple of times as well the last couple of weeks, was
           | absolutely stable before. I hope it's this and not hardware
           | failure.
        
         | 0xC0ncord wrote:
         | I too have been having AMD GPU video artifacting lately, but so
         | far that is the only regression I've noticed in 6.10.x. I am
         | still on 6.10.8 so I'm not sure if 6.10.10 will contain a fix
         | for me just yet.
        
         | shmerl wrote:
         | What GPU?
        
         | TomK32 wrote:
         | Is that just AMD? On my thinkpad X270 playing videos in Firefox
         | is just a mess. All sorts of problems while Chromium is just
         | fine. It's also fine on a copy of my system that I run on a
         | thinkcentre tiny.
        
           | nine_k wrote:
           | Check the Firefox video settings in about:config maybe?
        
           | tadfisher wrote:
           | I do believe Chromium still has to be patched to support HW
           | decode via vaapi, while recent Firefoxen turn it on out of
           | the box. So it's likely that Chromium is using software
           | rendering, bypassing any driver-related bugs.
        
           | PKop wrote:
           | Chromium doesn't support hardware decoded video though right?
           | While Firefox does, so you're killing your battery life with
           | extra cpu cycles.
        
         | dsissitka wrote:
         | I got bit twice.
         | 
         | First there was the bug that broke Chromium based apps when
         | using SELinux.
         | https://lore.kernel.org/all/30fc5b38165e4eda57d640eca76b7df1...
         | 
         | Then 6.10.6 didn't want to boot.
         | 
         | Usually I run into issues two or three times a year. I guess
         | this time around they just happened to be a little closer
         | together.
        
         | asmor wrote:
         | Early 6.10 somehow broke bluetooth audio for me, only letting
         | me use HSP.
        
         | globular-toast wrote:
         | Yeah, same problems with 6.10 and amdgpu. Radeon Pro WX 3200
         | fwiw. I've been on 6.8.9 for several weeks now. Just today I
         | booted 6.10.7 and it's been stable so far. I haven't tried to
         | put the system to sleep yet, though.
         | 
         | This isn't the first time I've had problems with the stable
         | kernel, though. A while back I had problems, also graphics
         | related, with Intel i915 (my onboard graphics that I used
         | before I got the AMD card). It took a while but it eventually
         | got fixed. I haven't looked to see if there's a bug tracked for
         | the AMD problem.
        
         | IshKebab wrote:
         | How does Linux handle testing? They don't seem to have a CI
         | system as far as I know. Presumably there's no big lab with
         | automated testing on real hardware. Does anyone know how
         | releases are tested?
        
           | Idesmi wrote:
           | As far as I remember, there is some automated testing before
           | release but very limited in scope.
        
           | leonheld wrote:
           | Several companies (including mine, Toradex) have setup board
           | farms to deal with Kernel regressions and bugs during the
           | `-rc` window, ie, the kernel that is going to be released is
           | heavily tested.
           | 
           | https://kernelci.org/ is a big one, Linaro has theirs
           | https://lkft.linaro.org/, Intel has multiple farms, Collabora
           | works relentlessly with GitLab integration
           | https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-
           | events/patc......
           | 
           | The kernel is _very_ much tested before a release with
           | gigantic automated labs on real hardware.
        
             | musicale wrote:
             | > The kernel is very much tested before a release with
             | gigantic automated labs on real hardware.
             | 
             | So what went wrong?
        
               | badsectoracula wrote:
               | I'd guess none of those labs are testing desktop
               | environments playing videos and running 3D software on
               | amdgpu.
        
           | JSDevOps wrote:
           | Explain how you would deal with CI in a kernel?
        
         | davidlt wrote:
         | I am really surprised with RNDA3 support. I have never seen so
         | many issue with iGPU (APU). It started with VP9 decoder issue
         | (e.g. just playing videos on YouTube was enough to trigger it),
         | but that got fixed after a very long time (required a new
         | firmware). Multiple constant [different] crashes, but you can
         | workaround most of them by adding amdgpu.sg_display=0 to your
         | bootargs. It's already listed in Arch Linux wiki, Gentoo wiki,
         | etc.
         | 
         | Again, I was surprised by the number of firmware and driver
         | issues since RNDA1/2/3 have been around for years now.
        
           | Idesmi wrote:
           | 6.10.5 fixed all my amdgpu issues.
        
         | lifeinthevoid wrote:
         | amdgpu on my 6.10 kernel has been crashing constantly too. It
         | makes me want to go back to Intel. My workaround has been to
         | let the ryzen 7700 iGPU run at its max clockspeed of 2200 Mhz
         | ...
        
         | gigatexal wrote:
         | 6.10 broke my fedora gaming proton box and I was on holiday at
         | the time and so upset I just nuked it and put windows on it to
         | play games. Now it's only powered on on the weekends to play
         | games and I've moved all my linux needs to a VM on my
         | overspecc'd Mac.
         | 
         | I also had an AMDGPU system. 5600X, AMD 6800 GPU, Fedora 40. ->
         | now win11 (which has so much cruft out of the box I am
         | considering nuking it and going back haha)
        
           | anthk wrote:
           | Try Fedora Bazzite. It's inmutable and you'll get rollbacks
           | at the grub prompt.
        
           | anotherhue wrote:
           | Broke my nixos steam/proton setup also. Using game scope as
           | the compositor. Switch to LTS (6.6 I think) solved it.
           | Frustrating bug but they don't call it nixos-unstable for
           | nothing. 7900 GRE
        
         | skerit wrote:
         | 6.10 broke my AMD 5700XT eGPU setup. Had to downgrade to 6.9
         | 
         | After I upgraded to a 7900XT it worked again.
        
         | mardifoufs wrote:
         | The past few releases were more problematic for me yeah. It's
         | super anecdotal since I never used Linux before the v5.xx
         | kernels but in comparison to those yes it's a bit less stable.
        
         | wooque wrote:
         | That's why I stick with Debian.
        
         | aseipp wrote:
         | amdgpu is shit for me, my friend. Funny story: my headless
         | server with a small Navi 1 workstation card (repurposed)
         | couldn't be SSH'd into last week. Went and plugged in a
         | monitor, rebooted, and the framebuffer got stuck during stage 1
         | while fsck'ing my disk. OK, I think to myself, it's probably
         | taking a while to fsck after N boots, happens once every few
         | months. Doesn't change for 48 hours. Turns out my machine had
         | just run out its DHCP lease, so it had a new IP and I didn't
         | realize it, which is why I couldn't log in. So I log in, and..
         | 
         | What was wrong? What actually happened was that on bootup, the
         | amdgpu driver would panic and fault during boot _exactly_ when
         | fsck was happening, and the framebuffer would be stuck forever.
         | So it just looked like a filesystem issue but in reality my
         | graphics output was merely fubar; the system itself was
         | otherwise fine tnough.
         | 
         | This is reliable and reproducible for me; it always faults at
         | almost the exact same spot at boot every time, for this kernel
         | version at least. In reality amdgpu has been unreliable for me
         | for 5+ releases at this point on a card less than like 7 years
         | old.
         | 
         | Really considering moving over to a small cheap nvidia card and
         | just running Nouveau instead. At least then I might have a
         | reliable framebuffer.
        
           | dogben wrote:
           | you can just blacklist amdgpu and use EFI/VGA buffer provided
           | by bios
        
         | trulyrandom wrote:
         | Just to add a non-problematic experience report to the mix:
         | I've been using 6.10 for months on two AMD machines with
         | different hardware (one with a 7840U and one with a 5700XT)
         | without any issues whatsoever.
        
       | xyst wrote:
       | I'm just at awe to see Torvalds still publishing the release
       | notes for Linux kernel.
        
         | HL33tibCe7 wrote:
         | He's got at least another decade in him
        
         | throwaway1194 wrote:
         | "I'm still working on it. It's been 25 years. I can do this for
         | another 25. I'll wear them down." --Linus Torvalds
        
         | ajcp wrote:
         | Not only release notes, he's still actively contributing! From
         | said release notes:
         | 
         | > Linus Torvalds (2):
         | 
         | > mm: avoid leaving partial pfn mappings around in error case
         | 
         | > Linux 6.11
        
         | candiddevmike wrote:
         | Wonder what kind of succession is in place. I'd assume there's
         | a legal framework around it to ensure continuity with something
         | so important.
        
           | fluoridation wrote:
           | I mean, it's GPL. If something were to happen to him, anyone
           | could just start their own fork. There would likely be some
           | competition between forks for a while before two or three
           | emerge as the successors eventually.
        
             | frantathefranta wrote:
             | Yes, but also most people would probably not want that to
             | happen to the Linux kernel. That's why people wonder about
             | contingencies.
        
             | candiddevmike wrote:
             | Linux is basically a national security issue at this point
             | with how much runs on it. Linus is an interesting dictator
             | because he's not bound to any corporation. I think some
             | kind of kernel throne wars would be terrible for the
             | community and could result in Red Hat or some other
             | corporate overlord owning the kernel (not literally because
             | of trademarks but effectively through the release and
             | mainline).
        
       | johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
       | Does this mean i can suspend my Linux laptop to ram now?
        
         | fsflover wrote:
         | If you choose the right laptop, yes. Works for me.
        
           | johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
           | Thinkpad L14 Gen 1, anybody care to take a guess?
        
             | asmor wrote:
             | You have no idea how little that narrows it down, there's
             | an Intel and an AMD variant.
        
               | IshKebab wrote:
               | lol so the answer is "probably not".
        
               | johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
               | My apologies, it runs a 4750u amd processor.
        
           | shatsky wrote:
           | Is suspend-to-ram something that often doesn't work on
           | laptops with Linux, really? I used it on dozens and saw
           | problems maybe once or twice. Though I usually pick ones
           | which are 3+ years old.
        
         | quibuss wrote:
         | Yes, very happy Thinkpad P14s user here on EndeavourOS.
        
           | zh3 wrote:
           | Always worked for me on Thinkpads (T41/T61/T420/T520). T420
           | reports a somewhat optimistic "122 hours remaining" when
           | coming out of sleep with a fully charged battery though.
        
         | pxc wrote:
         | I thought the issue with this nowadays was that hardware
         | support for suspend-to-ram has been increasingly removed from
         | hardware.
         | 
         | At the same time, S3 sleep worked just fine on supported
         | hardware 10 years ago. So what does suspend-to-ram have to do
         | with Linux 6.11 in particular?
        
         | PhilipRoman wrote:
         | Pretty vague question, suspend to ram has always worked for me
         | on multiple random laptops
        
       | jeffbee wrote:
       | Can't wait for Ubuntu to drop this into the Oracular beta for a
       | couple of days and pretend like that was tested before release.
        
         | ruthmarx wrote:
         | Isn't that a large part of what makes Ubuntu Ubuntu?
        
         | rafaelturk wrote:
         | Isn't that the very definition of what an upcoming release
         | should do?
        
           | jeffbee wrote:
           | Not at all. It is a poor pattern because they throw a kernel
           | over the wall right before the freeze, then refuse to fix any
           | of the bugs, because of the freeze.
           | 
           | The kernel should go out to general testing as soon as the
           | cycle starts, not right before it ends.
        
       | benakh wrote:
       | Anyone here that can comment on the new snapdragon X support?
        
         | SushiHippie wrote:
         | This is the latest news I could find about snapdragon support
         | 
         | https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.11-SoC-Platforms
         | 
         | EDIT: looking at the tree of 6.11, these 2 laptops are still
         | the only "supported"+ ones
         | 
         | https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...
         | 
         | + as in bootable, but still don't work fully (e.g. touchpad not
         | working, battery monitoring not working, camera not working,
         | usb/hdmi not working fully)
        
       | meiraleal wrote:
       | When will be the year of GNU/Linux for smartphones? Android is
       | not it. I wish we could install distros in a smartphone as easy
       | as it is in desktop
        
         | martinsnow wrote:
         | Nobody wants it outside of a tiny hobbyist segment.
        
           | candiddevmike wrote:
           | Nobody understands it outside of a tiny hobbyist segment,
           | because there is no "definitive" Linux. No two "Linux" look
           | the same.
           | 
           | The year of the Linux desktop will be when there's an OS like
           | Android or macOS that is running Linux but the only way you
           | would tell is by running uname.
        
         | squarefoot wrote:
         | Fighting against well known hardware on PCs is one thing, doing
         | the same against mobile manufacturers because they refuse to
         | release any documentation is a nightmare. Linux will have a
         | hard time becoming a reality in the mobile world because of
         | hardware manufacturers hostility, not for any of its faults.
         | Pine64 had to design the PinePhone platform from scratch for
         | this exact reason, still they encountered so many blocks that
         | when it finally became available it was already too old.
        
           | guerrilla wrote:
           | Maybe FairPhone can do it eventually.
        
         | shatsky wrote:
         | "As easy as in desktop" not going to happen anytime soon. Phone
         | "bootloader firmwares" lack full description of phone hardware
         | in stardartized form like PC ACPI does, expecting customized OS
         | kernel to know the phone it's running on. Phone devices lack
         | capability to emulate something ancient-but-standard, expecting
         | customized OS to include drivers for all of them. That's enough
         | to make unified OS images impossible.
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-15 23:01 UTC)