[-] luchs@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

Patents have been an issue for Linux before. For example, memory deduplication (KSM) was delayed and modified to avoid a patent on using hashes for this purpose, resulting in a potentially inferior implementation due to patents.

[-] luchs@feddit.de 13 points 1 year ago

Similarly, Linux kernel developers have added support for asymmetric instruction availability in their schedulers through features like “CPU microcode updates”, which allow the OS to query a processor’s available instructions sets at runtime and make more informed decisions about thread placement as a result.

This is bullshit, the microcode is not in any way a mechanism to query any information. It's an opaque blob provided by Intel and the system firmware. What's happening with Alder Lake is that AVX-512 is disabled through microcode, but if you're not Intel or a motherboard manufacturer, there is nothing you can do about that.

If your goal is to make AVX-512 usable on your computer, don't bother with it. It will not magically make things go faster.

luchs

joined 1 year ago