A One Line Kernel Patch Appears To Solve The Recent Linux + Steam Networking Regression

[phoronix]

Phoronix: A One Line Kernel Patch Appears To Solve The Recent Linux + Steam Networking Regression

As a follow-up to the issue reported on Friday regarding the latest Linux kernel releases causing problems for Valve's Steam client, a fix appears pending that with changing around one line of code does appear to address the regression...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Steam-Linux-Network-One-Line

[Kayote]

Linus himself fixing an issue on steam, amazing!. Ubuntu developers should take note instead of shooting their feet, undermining the one killer app that can make the dream of Linux as a desktop a dominant OS a reality.

[freedonuts]

Linus himself fixing an issue on steam, amazing!. Ubuntu developers should take note instead of shooting their feet, undermining the one killer app that can make the dream of Linux as a desktop a dominant OS a reality.

Did he? It seems to me (from the link provided in the article) that Eric Dumazet is author of the patch. Linus just pointed out the fact that patch is available on relevant github page so normies could test it.

[milkylainen]

I think Pierre-Loup is wrong about where primary regression testing for KERNEL CHANGES should occur.
If every desktop distro went about and tested everything from scratch it would be endless in trying to cover everything.
I am not saying that distro developers shouldn't do regression testing for applications like steam, but they have their own shit to worry about.

The IP stack with its core components like TCP and UDP should see regression testing by a kernel validation suite.
Much like core kernel performance.

A validation suite would also be a great learning tool in exposing functionality and providing examples on said functionality.

[brad0]

The IP stack with its core components like TCP and UDP should see regression testing by a kernel validation suite.
Much like core kernel performance.

A validation suite would also be a great learning tool in exposing functionality and providing examples on said functionality.

+1. Having all kinds of different OS's based on the kernel implement their own testing like this is very foolish. As you said it should be
part of some kernel regression test suite.

[humbug]

Valve is currently looking for a new distro around which to focus their Linux desktop gaming efforts. Currently they focus their testing and support around Ubuntu, but it will be dropped in favour of something else.

https://twitter.com/Plagman2/status/1142262103106973698

Quite a lot of options for them to choose from. They should pick something which uses fairly up-to-date kernels.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/155794864305471497/591834042437992448/Screenshot_20190622_053640.png

[brownsr]

I don't think Pierre's quoted comments are right. Certainly not for a desktop distro with a periodic release. Testing will occur around the time of a release, and will be based on whatever the distro has set up as regression tests. That may include some spot application regression tests, but that sort of thing can only be extensive if there is a suitable application regression test that the application authors supply to use. So if Valve wants distros to be able to find kernel/packaging application regressions on a systematic basis then they should be supplying a suitable automated regression test package for their application. Rolling releases would be completely dependent on a suitable automated regression test package I would think, placing even more need on a test package being supplied by the application. So over to Valve to supply some suitable 'self-test' function.

[gojul]

A workaround which seems to work pretty well is to launch Steam this way :
steam -tcp

But well, it is a shame.

[Adarion]

https://twitter.com/Plagman2/status/1142262103106973698

Interesting, very interesting. That might also be due to the 32bit drop of *buntu. That TCP stack issue was a kernel thing and thus might affect all distributions.

[gojul]

Interesting, very interesting. That might also be due to the 32bit drop of *buntu. That TCP stack issue was a kernel thing and thus might affect all distributions.

Debian is affected with the latest security fixes.