Not only did AMD deliver the powerful Ryzen 5000 “Zen 3” desktop processors and initial Radeon RX 6000 “Big Navi” graphics cards this year, but for exciting Linux users, the timely open-source support for the new GPUs was early (and also already preparing on some 2021 graphics products), as well as more timely support around Zen 3 thermal support and other additions. AMD’s open-source timing continues to improve, though not yet optimally, but it’s been a hell of a year for AMD Linux users.
AMD’s hardware launches this year have been fantastic with the Ryzen 5000 series still impressing on Linux with their excellent performance, and the Radeon RX 6000 series also delivers the best GPU performance for an open source driver to date. With enough new open-source components, the new products ran smoothly from day one – assuming you could get the hardware. But to allow for improvement to look forward to is that they can be even more punctual in their core activity work to facilitate users, especially people who want to stick with the LTS core versions. There are also other issues such as the support of the Zen 3 compilation patches that only appear after the launch, and to date there is still a lack of an updated cost table, scheduling model or other optimizations to really provide the updated processors. Intel is still ahead when it comes to getting open source support from the compiler tool chains and core support before launching the product, but AMD is improving.
Looking ahead to 2021, I’m really excited for the next generation AND Ryzen mobile processors, the next generation Threadripper, and definitely for EPYC 7003 “Milan” … Stay tuned for benchmarks on both when the time comes. Plus many other interesting Zen 3 and RDNA 2 standards that are still coming to the evolving open-source / Linux state.
The AMD open source / Linux news articles most seen on Phoronix for 2020 included the following:
Linus Torvalds switches to AMD Ryzen Threadripper after 15 years of Intel systems
An interesting anecdote shared in today’s Linux 5.7 rc7 announcement is a word that Linux and Git creator Linus Torvalds transferred his main installation to an AMD Ryzen Threadripper.
The AMD Radeon Graphics Driver makes up about 10.5% of the Linux kernel
Given the impending release of Linux 5.9, today I had a great time with cloc looking at the current rules of code counting for this almost final Linux 5.9 kernel state.
AMD against Intel contributions to the Linux kernel over the past decade
Driven by curiosity, here’s how the total number of AMD and Intel developers contributed to the upstream Linux kernel during the 2010s, as well as the total number of connections per year from the respective hardware vendors.
Acer launches in Germany what could be a great AMD Ryzen 5 4500U Linux laptop
For those looking for an AMD Linux laptop powered by a Ryzen 4000 processor, Acer will at least introduce a new laptop in Germany that can be very appealing to Linux users.
I ran the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U + Ubuntu 20.04 as my main system
For about a month and a half I have been using the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U as my laptop connected to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. It works very well not to even be the leading AMD Renoir SKU. Here are some extra comments for those thinking of one of the new AMD laptops using Linux.
Norms of Arch Linux’s Zen Kernel Flavor
Following Liquorix’s recent Linux kernel tests and other discussions about scheduling programs (and more), some requests have been made by premium supporters to see the implementation of Arch Linux’s Zen kernel package versus the generic kernel. Here are the benchmark results.
A quick look at the Blender 2.82 performance on Intel + AMD CPUs
Since Blender 2.82 was released on Friday, we started this weekend with our benchmarking of this new Blender version as the leading open-source 3D modeling solution currently available. Here are some preliminary v2.81 versus v2.82 figures on various higher end Intel and AMD processors.
Ryzen CPUs on Linux Finally see CCD temperatures, current and voltage reporting
One of the few frustrations with the AMD Ryzen CPU support on Linux to date has been the mainline core that does not support voltage readings and other extra sensors in addition to the often delayed CPU reporting support. But that’s finally changing with the “k10temp” driver being expanded to include current and voltage reporting, plus CCD temperature reporting on Zen 2 processors.
Stainless Redox OS Boot from AMD Ryzen Threadripper 128 Wire 3990X
The Rust-language-focused Redox OS open source operating system is now able to launch the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-core / 128-wire processor and work with full multi-wire features.
ASUS TUF laptops with Ryzen are now patched to stop overheating on Linux
The AMD Ryzen Linux laptop experience continues to improve, although it is very difficult for some elements of the support. In addition to the AMD Sensor Fusion Hub driver that was finally released and the current / voltage reporting for Zen CPUs on Linux, another step forward in Ryzen mobile support is a solution for ASUS TUF laptops with these processors.
LLVM / Clang 10.0 adds AMD Zen 2 scheduler model for optimized code generation
It’s a shame it took so many months after AMD started shipping Zen 2 based Ryzen and EPYC processors to see this compiler support in place, but the good news now is that for the upcoming release of LLVM 10.0 now the Zen 2 scheduler model is added to the “znver2” target.
AMD begins providing PowerPC builds from their “AOMP” GPU compiler
AOMP is the AMD GPU compiler for OpenMP and HIP support on GPUs as part of Radeon Open eCosystem 3.0 (ROCm 3.0). Now they have started providing PowerPC 64-bit LE collections from AOMP as part of the Radeon GPU computing on POWER9 systems.
A whole host of ACO optimizations for the Radeon Volcano driver that landed in Mesa 20.0
The valve-assisted ACO compiler backend optionally used by the RADV Radeon Vulcan driver has continued to become popular among Linux gamers and has also continued to age a lot for Mesa 20.0 which appears later this term.
RenderDoc 1.6 released, NVIDIA + AMD + Intel All Primed For Vulcan 1.2
The release of Vulkan 1.2 this morning is starting well.
Mesa 20.0 released with major improvements for Intel, AMD Radeon Vulkan / OpenGL
Mesa 20.0 is now released as the first quarter 2020 update of the Mesa 3D open-source graphics driver stack.
AMD Ryzen 4000 mobile series “Renoir” graphics are no longer experimental with Linux 5.5
Although the Linux 5.5 kernel is expected to be released only on Sunday, the Renoir graphics will no longer be treated as experimental if the AMDGPU DRM driver changes at the last minute. With that, there is open-source support out-of-the-box rather than being hidden behind a core module flag.
System76 can offer AMD Ryzen laptops when they start their own manufacturing
System76 is shipping their new Lemur Pro laptop in early April. This will be their most open laptop, although it is still based on Intel. But it looks like we may finally see a System76 laptop with AMD as they move forward with their ambitious plans to start manufacturing their own devices.
FFmpeg 4.3 released with AMD AMF encoding, Vulkan support, AV1 code
FFmpeg 4.3 is the latest version of this key-open multimedia library. FFmpeg 4.3 is quite a big version.
AMD hires another leading Linux core developer to work on their graphics driver
If you have experience with upstream Linux kernel development, AMD is hiring a leading Linux kernel developer.
Updated Linux k10temp driver for AMD CPUs to better handle power / tempo analysis
As we eagerly discussed last week, the Linux kernel k10temp driver has been updated for better AMD CPU CCD temperatures and voltage / current reporting. These improvements have developed rapidly thanks to the work of the open source community, with AMD still keeping the data sheets on the power / temperature registers close to their vest. A new version of k10temp was released on Wednesday.