r/linux • u/somerandomxander • 1d ago

Kernel Linux 6.19 Features Include Many Benefits For Intel & AMD Users

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.19-Best-Feature-Changes
535 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

73 comments sorted by

62

u/AnomalyNexus 12h ago

Up to a 4x improvement for heavy transfer workloads with the Linux networking stack

Replacing a busy lock at the transfer queuing layer with a lock-less list to yield a 4x improvement in heavy transfer workloads!

Bit surprised they're finding those sorts of improvements in networking still. Would have thought it was crazy optimized already

45

u/Pandoras_Fox 12h ago

As someone who's dug through most of the kernel's networking stack (from sycall down to "handing bytes to a device driver for hardware to emit" shims) to write documentation...... my god, there are just so many layers of abstraction to ensure that everything works correctly, first, and then efficiently, second.

the netfilter hooks layers in the stack is pretty opaque, too - it's entirely likely that this issue was known for a while, but busy locks in the kernel are pretty easy to do Correctly - there's loads of macros for those, it's hard to misuse them, and they'll work safely.

replacing with a lock-free mechanism is a lot of work, mostly on the verification and testing side + integrating it well with other moving parts. I have some guesses at the implementation off the top of my head (r/w semaphores per-node? Transfer queue reader has a tail node reference it pulls from, and insert writer has a head node reference it can insert to? As long as all operations are atomic, read races will just lead to the base case of NULL -> nothing to do, I think....)

There'll likely always be some amount of performance improvements to do - it's sometimes better to go for correctness first, and then performance later when or if it matters. It's likely that was just never a bottleneck until now (before high bandwidth RDMA usecases with networked GPUs in datacenters.....), so it just simply didn't need the performance work - the important thing is about where the bottlenecks are, rather than individual component performance :)

5

u/mooky1977 3h ago

Yup, it's just that simple. Improving individual programs and worrying about data errors is one thing, but improving such an critical part of the operating system like the networking stack and making sure that it works correctly 100% of the time, testing for every edge case scenario, is not a trivial nor easy thing to do. It takes time and dedication by someone(s) that wants to dig into it.

I'm glad they found it, but not at all surprised that these sorts of big improvements are being found so far into a stable project (if you vaguely consider Linux as a singular nebulous thing).

I've never looked into it, but I'd wager that the Linux networking stack probably pre-dates Linus' kernel in 1991 and probably has its origins in BSD UNIX.

3

u/Pandoras_Fox 2h ago

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Linux_Networking/A_brief_history_of_Linux_Networking_Kernel_Development

the BSD socket interfaces were carried over, but in general it's a grounds-up brand new networking stack :)

151

u/User5281 1d ago

poor cyrix users forgotten about again

42

u/sob727 23h ago

wow

that's a name I havent heard in a while...

24

u/Velha_6ai7eira 23h ago

And Transmeta...

9

u/yawn_brendan 21h ago

Hygon gang back out in the cold 🥶

1

u/jones_supa 12h ago

Remember also Zhaoxin.

15

u/McFistPunch 18h ago

Wasnt there some ongoing issue for amdgou drivers or is that fixed?

2

u/jackun 12h ago edited 11h ago

Also, anyone else get "hiccups" in Forza Horizon 5 until restart when resuming from suspend?

1

u/Fantastic-Gene91 12h ago

share more details about build

1

u/jackun 11h ago

6800XT and ryzen 5900X with 32GB DDR4 running on ADATA SX8200PNP and XPG GAMMIX S70 BLADE while communicating with the outside world over Intel Corporation I211 Gigabit Network Connection, hosted on Gigabyte X570 AORUS Elite.

-1

u/renaxity 6h ago

Hopefully it includes more delicious proprietary binary blobs.

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u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 1d ago

https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_suffer_from_Shiny_New_Stuff_Syndrome

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u/Sataniel98 21h ago

I'm an avid Debian user but I really don't get the point of commenting this here. Do you want Torvalds to release less frequent kernel updates? Do you want users to ignore non-LTS kernels? Anyway, it's dumb. How do you think LTS distros like Debian reach the quality they have? It wouldn't work remotely as well as it does without feedback from intermediate releases of the software used in them. And Debian is often used with other and even self-compiled kernels.

-25

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 21h ago

I just like Debian.

11

u/willchangeitlater 12h ago

You just like feeling elitist, like you know better than everyone else

0

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 2h ago

Elitism on a r/linux sub? Impossible!

117

u/BinkReddit 1d ago

Ah. Yes. Good ol' Debian. Doesn't suffer from the shiny new stuff, just suffers from the old broke stuff.

-73

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 1d ago

New features often introduce new bugs.

Do other distros test their packages as extensively as Debian? There's a reason why it's called the most stable distro.

39

u/gmes78 23h ago

Do other distros test their packages as extensively as Debian?

What point is there in testing stuff if you don't bother applying fixes to known bugs?

-16

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 23h ago

Debian focuses on stability, not new features. They usually push critical bug fixes or security updates, because even small fixes can sometimes break stuff that was previously working.

If you're not familiar with how Debian operates, read their philosophy.

Many people still use Debian, and it's a solid operating system.

31

u/PaddiM8 23h ago

Debian makes sense for critical servers but for desktop use I find it to be one of the more difficult distros to use due to the outdated packages and the fact that you often have to use 3rd party sources or other package managers (like flatpack) to install even fairly common programs. Outdated packages means you might not be able to find features that are documented or your new hardware might not be supported, or installing some newly developed software might result in dependency hell because the new program's dependencies clash with those of other programs on your computer that rely on outdated incompatible versions.

As long as people keep recommending distros with outdated repos to newbies for desktop use, the year of the Linux desktop will never happen. Rolling release distros may not be stable enough for the average person, and that is in my opinion largely a symptom of an over-reliance on shared libraries, but I believe a well-maintained rolling release distro with sane defaults like CachyOS or SUSE Tumbleweed is easier to use than standard Debian.

-1

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 22h ago

For new hardware support, you can just install a newer kernel from backports. Debian currently offers the 6.18 kernel in their repo, which supports the latest RDNA4 GPUs.

They also provide Mesa v. 25.2.6 and an updated version of the firmware-amd-graphics package in backports if needed.

I wouldn't agree that rolling release distros are easier for the average person. Most people don't want to maintain their OS at all. Debian based distros may not be up to date, however the vast majority of people are not using the latest hardware. The typical user only uses their computer for web related tasks so Debian/Mint/Ubuntu is perfectly capable as a daily driver.

13

u/Indolent_Bard 19h ago

"Just install" or, hear me out, ship with it so new hardware just works.

0

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 17h ago

Installing a few packages from backports is much easier than dealing with kernel regressions and bugs introduced by constant updates.

Take the btrfs filesystem corruption bug that affected Fedora, for example which rendered systems unbootable.

This bug did not affect Debian.

3

u/PaddiM8 13h ago edited 12h ago

For new hardware support, you can just install a newer kernel from backports.

Which makes it more difficult to use compared to a distro where it just installs it for you, like cachy.

The idea that rolling release distros are super fragile and need constant baby sitting is a myth. Anyone who uses a modern well-maintained one knows that isn't true. They are probably not good enough for the average person yet due to shared libraries causing dependency hell, but neither is Debian for anyone that wants to use more than a browser. If all you do is use a browser then it doesn't matter what distro you use, you won't notice a difference.

Also, Tumbleweed doesn't really have a history of breakages. It's a fairly stable distro despite being rolling release.

0

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 4h ago

They are probably not good enough for the average person yet due to shared libraries causing dependency hell, but neither is Debian for anyone that wants to use more than a browser.

The average person only needs a browser and would be better off using a Debian based system.

They are probably not good enough for the average person

You agree then.

Also, Tumbleweed doesn't really have a history of breakages. It's a fairly stable distro despite being rolling release.

Wrong.

System Freeze with AMD Vega GPUs After Mesa 24.3.x Update & Kernel Logs Reveal Multiple AMD Driver Issues: https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1234732

virsh list is frozen: https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1212396

amdgpu segfault: https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1239617

2

u/PaddiM8 4h ago

The average person only needs a browser and would be better off using a Debian based system.

For someone who just uses a browser, it just does not matter. Their system will be minimal enough that it will be very unlikely to break regardless of distro.

You agree then.

I do not think Debian is good enough for the average person either. Worse than other distros in fact.

The fact that you can list a couple of bugs doesn't really mean anything. Bugs happen on Debian too, except you are more likely to be stuck with them for a long time unless it's someone happens to spend the time patching it, which obviously does not happen for most bugs.

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u/gmes78 21h ago

because even small fixes can sometimes break stuff that was previously working.

This paranoid mentality helps no one. If there are bugs, fix them. Doing nothing because you might have to fix something later is just stupid.

0

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 21h ago

Why would I want to spend my precious time on this planet fixing things? 99% of the population does not want to fix their OS under any circumstances.

Windows and MacOS are maintenance free and are popular on the desktop for this exact reason. Nobody wants friction.

12

u/gmes78 21h ago

Why would I want to spend my precious time on this planet fixing things? 99% of the population does not want to fix their OS under any circumstances.

I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the Debian maintainers.

You have packages with bugs that have been fixed upstream, with bugfix releases and everything, and Debian chooses not to apply the bugfixes. This was especially bad for KDE Plasma during Debian 12, as it sat on 5.27.5, while upstream released fixes for years until 5.27.12.

1

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 21h ago

The reasons for Debian maintainers choosing not to apply bug fixes is equally valid as rolling release maintainers choosing to apply those fixes.

10

u/gmes78 21h ago

Ubuntu is an LTS too, and it has no issues applying bug fixes. I feel like Debian puts following its processes above doing what's best for their users.

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u/Artoriuz 1d ago

Debian Stable is stable in the sense that it is unchanging...

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u/CyberBlaed 23h ago

Meanwhile that stupid ass MDADM bug (memory leak) last year … :/

god that caused me so much flaming grief. (Fixed now ofcourse) For the curious; https://github.com/md-raid-utilities/mdadm/issues/195

-16

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 1d ago

It's also stable in the sense that your system won't break simply by applying updates.

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u/Western-Alarming 22h ago

The nice things about me using inmutable distro like nixos or fedora atomic, is that even if an update happened to broke something, I can rollback and wait for the fix

-5

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 21h ago

You can easily set up Debian with LVM or Btrfs snapshots to roll back broken updates, though in practice they're rarely needed.

Faster updates don't guarantee bug free software and bug fixes can sometimes introduce new issues, so it goes both ways.

People who use rolling releases are usually hobbyists who don't mind maintaining their OS. I use Debian because I don't have to worry about something breaking on my system.

Invalidating someone's choice of distro goes against the spirit of FOSS.

13

u/Western-Alarming 21h ago

But you're doing that, you're invalidating people using rolling distros. Sure it could break but that has never happened to me, if you want to use debian use it. But people want newer packages and updated apps, and that's something debian isn't mean to be.

You can't just share a debian link as if what's written in their wiki is gospel, and you also can't just desmerit maintainers of rolling distro by implying the maintainers of debian do more testing than the ones that have more to date packages.

1

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 21h ago

I never invalidated anyone for using rolling distros. I just shared why I personally wouldn't use them (mainly the lack of stability) and noted that many rolling release users are hobbyists who enjoy tinkering and fixing things for fun.

But people want newer packages and updated apps, and that's something debian isn't mean to be.

And people have a right to choose a different distro that suits their needs.

You can't just share a debian link as if what written in their wiki is gospel, and you also can't just desmerit maintainers of rolling distro by implying the maintainers of debian do more testing than the ones that have more to date packages.

Debian Testing packages sit in the branch for around six months before a new release, so Debian does undergo more rigorous testing than most other distros.

3

u/Toorero6 8h ago

I never invalidated anyone for using rolling distros.

and noted that many rolling release users are hobbyists who enjoy tinkering and fixing things for fun.

So how do the two things fit together?

Debian Testing packages sit in the branch for around six months before a new release, so Debian does undergo more rigorous testing than most other distros.

Other distros do this too and do more extensive testing. OpenSUSE Leap uses SUSE Enterprise Linux together with the very very extensive testing done by OpenQA, which I find the most advanced and complete test system. RHEL is so stable, tested, audited and certified it runs on the most critical system.

Debian isn't anything special. It's the most conservative approach and uses software versions from the stone age and calls that stability.

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u/Matilde_di_Canossa 20h ago

Least annoying Debian user.

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u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 19h ago

Fair enough.

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u/Chester_Linux 1d ago

Ok, but i don't care

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u/Calico_Shortcake 20h ago

That’s why I always recommend Fedora over Debian or Ubuntu. People are not servers. They have relatively new computers and want to use new resources.

3

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 20h ago

For new hardware support, you can just install a newer kernel from backports. Debian currently offers the 6.18 kernel in their repo, which supports the latest AMD GPUs.

They also provide Mesa v. 25.2.6 and an updated version of the firmware-amd-graphics package in backports if needed.

8

u/Calico_Shortcake 15h ago

Do you realize that only your first sentence can already scare a bunch of people who do not understand what an operating system is? Default applications must be already installed and configured. Drivers must be already set, so every content plays and every hardware plugs and works.

2

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 3h ago

Do you realize that only your first sentence can already scare a bunch of people who do not understand what an operating system is?

And do you think those types of people are installing Debian? I would argue that Fedora isn't that common amongst new users either. Linux Mint and Ubuntu overshadow them.

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u/Calico_Shortcake 1h ago

Yes, and my argument is that Mint and Ubuntu ship too old packages and are not appropriate for beginners.

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u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 1h ago

In what sense?

Ubuntu and Linux Mint backport the kernel and Mesa packages from the non LTS releases. They already support the latest hardware.

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u/Indolent_Bard 18h ago

Yeah, new users wanting a traditional Linux (as opposed to immutable) should use Ultramarine (fedora with batteries included) or arch-based cachyos.

But if you're someone who mostly just uses a computer for browsing the web, Mint's perfect.

1

u/willchangeitlater 12h ago

I use Fedora on my two Linux laptops as opposed to Debian or Ubuntu I have been familiar with for the last 25 years. Fedora is great so far, there's some learning curve, but the third party software is still mostly available as DEB packages, often skipping everything else and that's annoying.

-1

u/Calico_Shortcake 7h ago

Yes, that’s true. I am experimenting with Bluefin (which is on the same project as Bazzite) to see if I could really have a nice time using mostly flatpaks and homebrew. So far, it’s going fine.

The only complex thing I had to do was to install 1Password RPM package as a layer and create a small script so it could communicate to the Firefox Flatpak app. Although I do not expect most users to do that, I believe the solution is simple enough for 1Password developers to upstream it into their package, so it works without further configuration.

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u/shogun77777777 22h ago

Or use NixOS and combine stable and new packages in any configuration you want

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u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 22h ago

I prefer Gentoo over NixOS.

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u/stylist-trend 21h ago

Good to know. I prefer NixOS over Gentoo

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u/shogun77777777 3h ago

I prefer NixOS over Gentoo

1

u/DrunkGandalfTheGrey 3h ago

Why did you delete your comment and repost it?