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Linus Torvalds is "fed up" with making kernel changes to address faulty hardware (www.techspot.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Linux Creator Linus Torvalds recently expressed frustration with change proposals to the Linux kernel that are only "required" due to faulty hardware. Phoronix notes that Torvalds ranted on the Linux kernel mailing list over the last week, saying that buggy hardware should not be Linux's problem, suggesting kernel developers just say "no" and see what the "hardware people" say.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The problem is that it takes months (in the absolute best case) to years to fix hardware bugs. And every piece of hardware has bugs, just like all software has bugs. So does everyone always have known compromised computers?

The timelines for software vs hardware are just so different. After they both figure out the problem, find a viable solution and test that solution, there's still so much time left for the hardware fix to come out. With current pocesses, it's like 4-5 months to get silicon back. And that's if you've already reserved the time for them to make the masks and the new chips. And that's just to get the first chips back. You still have to get them to consumers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

There are chipset design issues and there are firmware issues. The former is much more difficult to address quickly than the latter, sure.

Torvalds's point, though, is that hardware developers (Intel specifically) keep making changes that "fix" imaginary problems while screwing over compatibility, and trying to shift the onus of making it work to the volunteers who contribute to open source instead of just paying their engineers to produce working firmware.

If the problem were only with defective silicon, I'd agree with you (to an extent), but this is not really an issue with the circuits.