Business Ubuntu Linux Evaluating x86-64-v3 Based Build - AVX & Newer Intel/AMD CPUs - Legitimate developer choice or part of a scheme to ensure needless perpetual upgrades?

(source) / (archive)
Canonical is experimenting with x86_64 micro-architecture feature levels! They have produced an experimental build of Ubuntu Server using x86_64_v3 for requiring basically Intel and AMD CPUs with AVX capabilities. But they aren't yet committing to it as a default or when such a change may materialize.

As part of Ubuntu optimizing performance for Intel/AMD x86_64 systems, Intel is exploring possible x86-64-v3 use, which is the feature level adding AVX/AVX2, BMI1, BMI2, FMA, and other newer CPU feature levels. This basically would limit the Intel and AMD CPU support on Ubuntu Linux to roughly ~2015 era hardware and newer. It's roughly Intel Haswell era processors and newer.

Canonical is still determining how many Ubuntu Linux users are running on x86-64-v2 or older hardware as well as quantifying the performance benefits to x86-64-v3. For what it's worth, Red Hat and SUSE have gone the more conservative route of an x86-64-v2 baseline.

See this Canonical blog post for more details on their initial ideas around Ubuntu Linux x86-64-v3 support. There is this Discourse thread with an Ubuntu 23.04 x86-64-v3 build available (yes, 23.04 and not the newest 23.10).

It will be very interesting to see what Canonical decides for an x86_64 baseline for future Ubuntu Linux versions and whether they will change it for the upcoming Ubuntu 24.04 LTS version.

 

[generic sauce]

For servers supporting 8-9 year old hardware is pretty decent and it's not like old source is going anywhere.

 

[spinal gas chamber]

Oh is this Slashdot

GNAA (GAY N1GGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which
gathers GAY N1GGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY N1GGERS!

Are you GAY ?
Are you a N1GGER ?
Are you a GAY N1GGER ?

If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY N1GGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY N1GGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY N1GGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY N1GGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America.
You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!
First - you have to obtain a copy of GAY N1GGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

You can watch GAY N1GGERS FROM OUTER SPACE on Youtube. FOR A GAY UNIVERSE!
You can also get GAY N1GGERS FROM OUTER SPACE with this magnet link "magnet:?xt=urn:btih:5fbb4224d15e46bdc6dd41ac6635f91b6a7d5ac0"
Second - you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org , a formerly popular "news for trolls" website
Third - you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY N1GGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network.
The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.Prison.NET or irc.mzima.net as one of the EFNet servers.
If you do not have an IRC client handy you are free to use the GNAA Java IRC client by clicking here.

If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.

This post brought to you by Penisbird who is a proud member of the GNAA

 

[Vesperus]

I've left my pearls of of wisdom regarding Canonical in The Linux thread so I won't here, but without doing a deep dive I shall assume this is the usual "Canonical invent new pedals for penny farthing" level of retarded they usually hack up like a hairball when they can't do anything useful.

 

[Monopoly Supporter]

Another consequence of the Linux design pattern of having the distribution manage all compilation of software. The kernel does not use AVX, SSE, etc. at all. User software will see very, VERY small improvements if any at all. But enough that Canonical can brag that their Linux is faster than the other Linux. Unless you are writing code explicitly for AVX, you will not see many benefits of AVX. And code that already uses SSE intrinsics will see 0 improvement because you cannot magically convert SSE to AVX intrinsics. Compare to how Windows 10 did it where the base OS requires SSE2 or something while other add-on software may have different requirements vs. doing what Canonical does and putting a hard requirement for AVX2 in every single software package. The Linux model lends itself to planned obsolescence because your software support is tied to the operating system. Apparently, according to Red Hat my 2010 Mac Minis are so obsolete that they can't run RHEL 9 (but apparently RHEL 7 running a kernel from 2014 and Python 3.6 with a bunch of patches backported to it means it is up to date and supported). Do you know what will run on those Mac Minis? Windows 10 and Alpine. It's complete bullshit because x86-64-v2 means a hard requirement on POPCNT/LZCNT, which is the only part of x86-64-v2 that Penryn doesn't support.

Tremont also doesn't have AVX2. According to Canonical, a Pentium Silver from 2021 is obsolete and can't run Ubuntu. Maybe it is in Ubuntu world where you get at most 5 years of bug fixes.

 

[Cuckoman]

TBH, they have been a distro long enough and have reached a level of automation high enough that creating a special branch of Ubuntu with special compile flags should at most be a matter of hours, or a day, to implement.
If that is not the case ... maybe they need to hire better engineers.

 

[Vesperus]

maybe they need to hire better engineers.

I'll take option B please.

Although it must be said, this is a management problem, not an engineer problem.

 

[Kendall Motor Oil]

Another consequence of the Linux design pattern of having the distribution manage all compilation of software. The kernel does not use AVX, SSE, etc. at all. User software will see very, VERY small improvements if any at all. But enough that Canonical can brag that their Linux is faster than the other Linux. Unless you are writing code explicitly for AVX, you will not see many benefits of AVX. And code that already uses SSE intrinsics will see 0 improvement because you cannot magically convert SSE to AVX intrinsics. Compare to how Windows 10 did it where the base OS requires SSE2 or something while other add-on software may have different requirements vs. doing what Canonical does and putting a hard requirement for AVX2 in every single software package. The Linux model lends itself to planned obsolescence because your software support is tied to the operating system. Apparently, according to Red Hat my 2010 Mac Minis are so obsolete that they can't run RHEL 9 (but apparently RHEL 7 running a kernel from 2014 and Python 3.6 with a bunch of patches backported to it means it is up to date and supported). Do you know what will run on those Mac Minis? Windows 10 and Alpine. It's complete bullshit because x86-64-v2 means a hard requirement on POPCNT/LZCNT, which is the only part of x86-64-v2 that Penryn doesn't support.

Tremont also doesn't have AVX2. According to Canonical, a Pentium Silver from 2021 is obsolete and can't run Ubuntu. Maybe it is in Ubuntu world where you get at most 5 years of bug fixes.

You are absolutely retarded.

 

[Ducks Sorted in a Row]

I've left my pearls of of wisdom regarding Canonical in The Linux thread so I won't here, but without doing a deep dive I shall assume this is the usual "Canonical invent new pedals for penny farthing" level of retarded they usually hack up like a hairball when they can't do anything useful.

From what I can tell, they just turned on a -march flag in the compiler and called it a day. The performance gains are GNU's.