Researchers have discovered an extremely simple way to speed up the performance of Linux machines.
Many Linux devices have been plagued by Windows-based hardware management since 2002, but that could change. Sophisticated interfaces between a machine’s operating system and its hardware, such as chips that slow down a Linux machine, have long been required to ensure the performance of processors with billions of transistors.
Although the newest ACPI standard replaced the previous APM standard in 1996, even more than a quarter of a century ago, it still had one key drawback.
Slower performance
Computer engineers run most of their testing on an industry standard operating system that has long been Windows, making Linux and macOS distributions mostly unthinkable when using third-party chips like AMD processors.
With the introduction of its own silicon, Apple has found one way to increase performance through the processors it uses in its computers. The company’s M-series chips are currently in their second generation, although this is an expensive solution that is just beyond the reach of the Linux Foundation.
Poor Linux performance
The report still resembles Linux creator Linus Torvalds’ thoughts on the updated ACPI standard when he said in 2003:
“ACPI is a complete design disaster by all means. But we got a little stuck with it. If anyone at Intel is listening to this and you had anything to do with ACPI, shoot yourself now before you start breeding. “
The problem surfaced when the problematic machines took some time to respond to STPCLK # signals that determine whether the core should be idle. This resulted in a reduction in energy efficiency, which resulted in the introduction of some fake I / O instructions as a workaround.
While this is no longer a problem, AMD engineer K Prateek Nayak discovered that Linux machines were still following fake instructions for his company’s processors. Meanwhile, The Register reports of a “hurried patch” by Intel’s Dave Hansen that limits the workaround to Intel chips only, which is not affected by a different method they use to idle the core. As a result, the minimum bandwidth is said to have increased by about 14 times and the average bandwidth has increased by just over half.
Ultimately, even as we enter the summer of 2020, much of the third-party hardware we see on the market is still being developed primarily with Windows in mind, and it is likely that the fixes made by eagle-eyed engineers will continue to drive improvements for less popular operating systems as they go by. time.
By Register (opens in a new tab)