The New Features Of Linux 4.15: AMDGPU DC, RISC-V, EPYC Benefits, VR Improvements

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The New Features Of Linux 4.15: AMDGPU DC, RISC-V, EPYC Benefits, VR Improvements

The merge window is effectively over for Linux 4.15 with it being the 14th day of the process, although 4.15-rc1 might not end up coming out today due to Linus Torvalds' traveling around the US Thanksgiving holiday. But with Torvalds tending to not approve major last minute additions to new kernels, we don't anticipate any last minute surprises and therefore here is our feature overview of the changes and new features of Linux 4.15. This is arguably the most exciting and feature-packed kernel update ever.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=25577

[Brisse]

This is the big one ^_^

[Michael]

This is the big one ^_^

until Linux 4.16

[Brane215]

still no bcachefs and bus1...

[FireBurn]

Wasn't this unmerged due to lack of testing?

Intel UMIP for User-Mode Instruction Prevention for preventing certain instructions from being executed outside of ring level zero.

[Michael]

Wasn't this unmerged due to lack of testing?

The KVM side of the work was unmerged.

[zekesonxx]

- The HTC Vive VR headset will now be treated as a non-desktop device as other Direct Rendering Manager work around improving SteamVR on Linux.

Link is messed up.

[Zoll]

Link is messed up.

Was about to say the same thing. I guess I'll google for this item then.

[R41N3R]

A lot of is still missing thanks to wintel developers (mostly) if you have a Ryzen&RX PC and an older intel laptop.

Patching kernel for a new Ryzen computer

To prevent random kernel lock ups, enable RCU_NOCB_CPU and boot the kernel with the rcu_nocbs=0-X command line parameter. X is the cpu thread count -1.

Apply enable_additional_cpu_optimizations_for_gcc_v4.9+_ kernel_v4.13+.patch.

So for a non debug kernel, enable ACPI_NO_ERROR_MESSAGES. Exporting ACPI_HELP_APP as terminal environment variable does not work.

./include/acpi/platform/acenv.h
/* acpi_help configuration. Error messages disabled. */

#ifdef ACPI_HELP_APP
#define ACPI_NO_ERROR_MESSAGES
#endif
+#define ACPI_NO_ERROR_MESSAGES

Change Invalid PCI ROM header signature message to use the dev_info function in drivers/pci/rom.c


Intel gpu flip timeout error messages:
Add to the kernel command line: video=SVIDEO-1:d
This has solved the bug for me on my Latitude D630 with a 4.9 kernel. It disables the SVIDEO connector but my laptop doesen't even have one so it's fine.

The random lockups are really annoying! Hoped that the new Linux firmware or AGESA 1.0.0.7 might help, but it didn't.

[vsteel]

I have a Ryzen 7 1800X and it has been nothing but rock solid for me. Running Kubuntu 17.10 with backports turned on. Not a single crash including running mem86 and mprime for long periods of time. I have only had it a few weeks though when I bought it on a wicked sale.