Linux Kernel 4.11 Officially Released (softpedia.com) 55
prisoninmate quotes Softpedia: Linux kernel 4.11 has been in development for the past two months, since very early March, when the first Release Candidate arrived for public testing. Eight RCs later, we're now able to download and compile the final release of Linux 4.11 on our favorite GNU/Linux distributions and enjoy its new features. Prominent ones include scalable swapping for SSDs, a brand new perf ftrace tool, support for OPAL drives, support for the SMC-R (Shared Memory Communications-RDMA) protocol, journalling support for MD RAID5, all new statx() system call to replace stat(2), and persistent scrollback buffers for VGA consoles... The Linux 4.11 kernel also introduces initial support for Intel Gemini Lake chips, which is an Atom-based, low-cost computer processor family developed using Intel's 14-nanometer technology, and better power management for AMD Radeon GPUs when the AMDGPU open-source graphics driver is used.
API/ABI fixes (Score:3, Informative)
VMWare Workstation/Player 12.5.5 also needs some [pastebin.com] love [pastebin.com].
VirtualBox has already been made compatible. Thanks, Oracle for keeping it up to date.
Lastly, a human readable changelog is always where you expect to find it: https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_4.11 [kernelnewbies.org].
Re: API/ABI fixes (Score:1, Funny)
The systemd paradox:
1. systemd is worse than nothing.
2. Nothing is worse than systemd.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Effectively.
They use the same kernel. They use the same init system. They use the same userland software. With Ubuntu switching to GNOME 3 [slashdot.org] and Wayland [slashdot.org], now they use the same default compositor and desktop environment. And it's developers associated with Red Hat in one way or another that control the development of a lot of this software.
The main difference between Debian-derived distros and Fedora-derived distros is that you type "apt" to manage packages on Debian-d
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Forget about silly nVidia drivers. The seriously important thing is; does it support systemd yet?
At the rate systemd is absorbing functionality, the question is now (or soon will be) "Does systemd still support Linux?"
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
Ah, yes, cannot forget about those users that want to f*** themselves with a wire-brush is the slightest thing goes wrong during boot.
Re:API/ABI fixes (Score:5, Informative)
You have your terminology wrong. The nVidia drivers are not using an API or ABI, they are hooking drectly into the kernel. That's why they keep having problems with new versions that change internals.
Meanwhile, changing an ABI is as close to a firing offense as you can get with open source software (which will result in a slashdot post about Linus' use of profanities), and API changes are only acceptable as long as the old ABI is kept in place.
Re: (Score:1)
Why doesn't the Linux kernel offer a proper API for this functionality?
Because the only ones who need one is nVidia, and they don't have any interest in creating and maintaining one. Possibly due to fear that nVidia creating such an API would help AMD. So why don't the kernel developers make one? 1, they don't need one, and 2, even if they did, it would be exactly what nVidia neds, so nVidia wouldn't use it. nVidia already doesn't used direct rendering manager because it doesn't do exactly what they want.
Such APIs do exist for other hardware types such as USB hardware, and is
Re: API/ABI fixes (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes but virtual box is an obsolete POS anyway. You should either shell out for VMWare if you need the features and compatibility with other hosts, or just use KVM/libvirt, and your choice of a bunch of very good front ends. Or just use qemu on the command line with some shell scripts.
Re: (Score:2)
although i don't know how long it's been like that, right now on gnu/linux, virtualbox is a frontend for KVM. on windows, it's a frontend for hyper-v. you CAN still use the *legacy* virtualbox native hypervisor but it's not selected by default.
Re: (Score:2)
on windows, it's a frontend for hyper-v. you CAN still use the *legacy* virtualbox native hypervisor but it's not selected by default.
Considering that Windows client systems don't come with Hyper-V enabled by default, and yet Virtualbox still works, your theory seems unlikely to be true.
Re: (Score:2)
well, maybe saying it's just a frontend for kvm is a bit of an overstatement, but not by much - https://www.virtualbox.org/man... [virtualbox.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Providing common paravirtualization methods like KVM/HyperV hooks to the GUEST OS isn't the same as using the KVM code on the host/hypervisor. Virtualbox is it's own hypervisor.
Meanwhile in opensource land... (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome another round of API/ABI breakage: even the latest beta NVIDIA drivers 381.09 are not compatible with this kernel.
Meanwhile, opensource drivers, that are part of the kernel all work.
Intel's opensource driver :
- development paid by Intel themselves
- works with Intel's own opensource openGL driver)
IT WORKS
AMD's opensource driver :
- development paid, among other, by AMD themselves (but also by Valve)
- works with both the opensource driver (whose developement was among other paid by AMD, and is considered the future official driver)
- and the closed source AMDGPU-PRO (that AMD is putting, until the opensource catches up (openCL and Vulkan not up to par yet *) and for the few professional CAD workstation users that needs some weird feature that AMD is never bothering to port to Mesa)
IT WORKS.
Only NVIDIA persist in doing things their way (because it enables them to simply cross-compile** their Windows drivers to Linux, even if that breaks most facilities used by everybody else - see Optimus, etc.).
And only collaborates once in a bluemoon with the Nouveau developpers when it helps their agenda with Tegra mobile GPUs (where Linux support is a must).
(And because of that, even the opensource Nouveau that had to be developped from scratch by unrelated 3rd parties - is problematic)
INSERT LINUS' "FUCK YOU NVIDIA" PIC
So stop blaming Linux dev's for Nvidia's wrong doings.
Everyone else plays nicely with Linux and it works.
Only Nvidia decide to fuck up everything and go against everyone else and you see the end result.
---
* : OpenCL is in the process of getting ported by AMD on their ROCm opensource computing platform. Once that is done, AMD will officially have a good quality opensource OpenCL.
Vulkan: has a closed source implementation inside AMDGPU-PRO that AMD has promised they'll opensource (but they're VERY LATE with the legal review necessary to release the code). Meanwhile a couple of opensource developpers have released RADV which works with most Vulkan games (including through Wine), but isn't complete (still misses tons of extensions that aren't widespread in game) and isn't very performant yet (well of course, it's a very recent addition) (AMD has considered putting priority to opensourcing of those bits of AMDGPU-PRO's Vulkan that could also help RADV developpers the most. But again, they're really behind with these opensourcing efforts.)
** - AMD decided to go the other way around : they wrote an entirely new abstraction layer (called DAL / DC) to be both usable under Windows and Linux and for closed source and Mesa drivers.
Problem : that layer has been written by veteran *windows* developpers at AMD, not AMD's usual opensource inhouse crew.
And it shows.
It makes Linus' eyes bleed.
So currently it's not yet in vanilla kernel, it's still being reworked into something more acceptable.
Once it's done, the last few missing features (e.g.: HDMI, Freesync, etc.) should also work with maintstream kernel on Radeon GPUs.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You've got it backwards.
Not setting it in stone is so that things can be changed if they have been wrong all the time.
That was the policy choice.
Re: (Score:2)
Only Nvidia decide to fuck up everything and go against everyone else and you see the end result.
This is why I stopped using or recommending NVidia, after the AMDGPU driver reached a level of usable maturity. While the AMDGPU driver still has some issues, it is a very good driver. I also suspect that the one screen issue I have is caused by a failing 7 year-old motherboard, as it doesn't happen on any of my other computers.
I whole-heartedly second the, "Fuck You, NVidia" sentiment. And I am sure to at least plant those same seeds of discontent in the minds of my customers, which frequently result in
Re: (Score:3)
Alternate version - nVidia stuff has been outperforming AMD for decades. Only the latest generation of AMD card is somewhat useful - and it benchmarks well below any nVidia card.
For years, the nVidia driver has had the odd quibble, but has worked fine. AMD's drivers over that same timeframe have been horrible.
Don't whitewash the history of how things rolled out due to the latest 6 months of development work by AMD....
Re: (Score:3)
Alternate version - nVidia stuff has been outperforming AMD for decades.
Yep, and for the longest time, my advice had always been, "just buy NVidia, and be done with it. ATI Linux support sucks, while NVidia's is much b" But I am not brand loyal (brand loyalty is such a bizarre behavior). I support whichever company best addresses my needs. In the past, that was NVidia; that was because ATI was just as abusive as NVidia, but their Linux integration was atrocious.
But things started to change with AMD released its full documentation. At that point, the scales starting tipping
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
...I think a desktop is somewhat broken if video acceleration is required to make it smooth and fluid.
Video acceleration has always been required to make graphical displays smooth and fluid. When we moved away from 80x25 text screens to graphical displays, hardware video acceleration was required if you didn't want to watch your screen perform a slurping motion while scrolling the screen. There is no getting around this on any graphical system.
I think you were referring to 3D acceleration, though, which is also a necessity for nice visual effects. KDE has a very rich set of desktop effects that are not
Re: (Score:2)
When it is a requirement instead of icing on the cake of something that can degrade gracefully when such hardware is not present it is only for the lazy. Such lazy programming and very poor performance even with far more hardware than should be required has been used as the example of why X is broken when it really isn't - the badly written window managers and related software are broken.
Re: (Score:2)
Ten year old netbooks have video acceleration aplenty. They can usually run compositing as well.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think brand loyalty is bizarre. If a brand is good and has earned your trust then it's worth supporting it during a slump. Otherwise the competitor that takes its place might screw you when the good brand has folded.
Re: (Score:2)
If a brand is good and has earned your trust then it's worth supporting it during a slump.
That isn't brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is continuing to use a brand because you are familiar with it, even (perhaps especially) when it is a terrible choice, just because of the brand name. Political parties are one example of a particularly brain damaged and extraordinarily harmful form of brand loyalty.
Drivers development history (Score:2)
Only the latest generation of AMD card is somewhat useful - and it benchmarks well below any nVidia card.
...for a smaller power budget and cheaper price.
AMD simply doesn't produce cards in the ultra-high-range category.
For years, the nVidia driver has had the odd quibble
Like Optimus not working at all on dual GPUs.
Like modesetting completely getting fucked-up on some laptops (including a few of mines).
Like display not surviving suspend/resume cycles on some laptops (including a few of mines).
(Note: all the above boil down to : Nvidia decided to not play nice with the kernel facilities that everybody else accepted to use, like DMA-BUF and KMS respectively).
AMD's drivers over that same timeframe have been horrible.
AMD's
Re: (Score:2)
When the last former SGI employee who got badly burned with courtroom antics about patents leaves Nvidia you might see the source get opened up.
There is plenty to hate, but you are directing it in the wrong direction.
Big THANK YOU to all contributors (Score:5, Insightful)
A big THANK YOU for all the hard work to all contributors.
I cannot imagine using a system built on top of anything else than Linux. ;-)
The worldwide supercomputers and HPC clusters tend to agree with me
Testing... (Score:1)
"Eight RCs later"?? Methinks they need to stay in beta a wee bit longer next time.
Re: Testing... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Testing... (Score:2)
persistent scrollback buffers for VGA consoles (Score:3)
Kudos to Manuel for fixing [kernel.org] this thing that's annoyed me for a good twenty years.
Impressive how small the feature patch is!
I'll be setting vgacon.scrollback_persistent=1 on my bare-metal x86 machines.