"Beyond Stupid" Paranoid L1d Cache Flushing Looks Like It Will Try Again For Linux 5.15

[phoronix]

Phoronix: "Beyond Stupid" Paranoid L1d Cache Flushing Looks Like It Will Try Again For Linux 5.15

The work going on for over a year to optionally flush the L1 data cache on context switching is going to try again for the next kernel cycle as an opt-in feature for select tasks. This was the feature rejected last year by Linus Torvalds that went on to "beyond stupid" and other concerns about it when it was trying to be mainlined originally...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Paranoid-L1d-Flush-x86-CPU-5.15

[mdedetrich]

The best thing to come out of this is that we now have the "BEYOND STUPID" tag for phoronix articles

[torsionbar28]

I wonder why the major ARM server players (Ampere, Cavium, etc) have not bothered with a desktop? If they were to sell their big ARM chip in a socketed ATX motherboard that anyone can integrate, and have it be price competitive with a Xeon E3 system, I bet there's demand for that. I'd buy one. I'd love an ARM system with ECC memory that isn't rackmount. But I guess these days developers all carry Macbooks and do their dev work in the cloud, smh.

[anarki2]

I wonder why the major ARM server players (Ampere, Cavium, etc) have not bothered with a desktop? If they were to sell their big ARM chip in a socketed ATX motherboard that anyone can integrate, and have it be price competitive with a Xeon E3 system, I bet there's demand for that. I'd buy one. I'd love an ARM system with ECC memory that isn't rackmount. But I guess these days developers all carry Macbooks and do their dev work in the cloud, smh.

What exactly would you gain from an ARM desktop? It doesn't make much sense to change things just for the sake of change.

In any case, there are various ARM workstations available already, but they're horrible support-wise. Even just getting a POST screen is like a week's challenge with various emails exchanged with the corresponding support team.

If you're that bored, there are way better things to do with your free time than messing with an ARM desktop.

[torsionbar28]

What exactly would you gain from an ARM desktop?

The same thing anyone gets from having real hardware in hand to conduct development work on.

"Without a development platform, ARM in the server space is never going to make it." -Linus Torvalds

It doesn't make much sense to change things just for the sake of change.

What's the change? Agree hope-n-change is garbage, but not sure what you're getting at here?

If you're that bored, there are way better things to do with your free time than messing with an ARM desktop.

I'm far too busy to be bored. I find those who offer platitudes in technical discussions are generally the most bored.

[BlueCrayon]

I wonder why the major ARM server players (Ampere, Cavium, etc) have not bothered with a desktop?

Because then you get to create a brand new desktop ecosystem from scratch. That includes the OS, the peripherals (anything that goes onto the pci-express bus).. And then try to penetrate a market that's dominated by the big players. Where the margins are not that high

[andyprough]

I wonder why the major ARM server players (Ampere, Cavium, etc) have not bothered with a desktop? If they were to sell their big ARM chip in a socketed ATX motherboard that anyone can integrate, and have it be price competitive with a Xeon E3 system, I bet there's demand for that. I'd buy one. I'd love an ARM system with ECC memory that isn't rackmount. But I guess these days developers all carry Macbooks and do their dev work in the cloud, smh.

HoneyComb LX2 by SolidRun is what you are looking for. $750. CPU: "LX2160A features sixteen high-performance Arm Cortex ®-A72 cores running at over 2 GHz in a sub 30-watt power envelope".

[torsionbar28]

Because then you get to create a brand new desktop ecosystem from scratch.

Those who follow the industry know that ARM developer boards intended for desktop use have been around for a number of years. This isn't a new market. Google "raspberry pi" or "odroid c4". A standardized form factor is the attribute that has been elusive, along with more serious features like ECC memory support.

HoneyComb LX2 by SolidRun is what you are looking for. $750. CPU: "LX2160A features sixteen high-performance Arm Cortex ®-A72 cores running at over 2 GHz in a sub 30-watt power envelope".

Perfect, thank you for sharing!

Edit: And it even takes SFP's, I <3 this!!

[stormcrow]

I wonder why the major ARM server players (Ampere, Cavium, etc) have not bothered with a desktop? If they were to sell their big ARM chip in a socketed ATX motherboard that anyone can integrate, and have it be price competitive with a Xeon E3 system, I bet there's demand for that. I'd buy one. I'd love an ARM system with ECC memory that isn't rackmount. But I guess these days developers all carry Macbooks and do their dev work in the cloud, smh.

Desktops (and laptops) aren't a growth market. Servers are. Also the dominant OS in the desktop market is Windows, which is awful on ARM. The server market isn't crippled by Windows.

If Windows didn't absolutely suck on ARM, then maybe there'd be something to the argument. Then you'd have to convince the real movers of the PC market - enterprises - to play along. History has shown that won't likely to happen.

I'm willing to bet eventually something similar to thin clients will start to take over there, and they may even be ARM based, but they'll only superficially resemble today's desktop PCs. They'll be set up to do remote desktops centrally managed on either central premises or cloud hosted servers to better manage rapidly evolving security threats.

[torsionbar28]

Desktops (and laptops) aren't a growth market.

You're talking client peecee's. Grandma checking her AOL email and such. I'm talking workstations i.e. the market presently served by Xeon W/E/E3 and typically paired with 32 or 64 GB of ECC memory.