AMD this year not only delivered the very powerful “Zen 3” Ryzen 5000 desktop processors and the original Radeon RX 6000 “Big Navi” graphics cards, but for the exciting Linux users it was timely support for the new GPUs with much time in advance (and also already preparing for some graphics products for 2021), as well as more timely assistance around the Zen 3 thermal support and other additions. AMD’s open-source momentum is improving, though not yet optimal, but it’s all been a year for AMD Linux users.
AMD’s hardware releases this year have been fantastic, with the Ryzen 5000 series continuing to impress Linux with their excellent performance, and the Radeon RX 6000 series also offering the best GPU performance for an open-source driver to date. With new enough open-source components, the new products ran smoothly from day one – assuming you were able to purchase the hardware. But leaving room for improvement in perspective is that they could be even more punctual in their kernel activation work to make it easier for users, especially people in the enterprise who want to stick to LTS kernel versions. There are also other issues, such as support patches for the Zen 3 compiler that appear only after launch and so far still lack any updated cost table, scheduler model or other optimizations to really meet updated processors. Intel continues to lead when it comes to open-source support from compiler tool chains and kernel support long before product launches, but AMD has been on an improved trajectory.
Looking ahead to 2021, I’m damn excited about the latest generation mobile processors AND Ryzen, the latest generation Threadripper and certainly for the EPYC 7003 “Milano” … Stay up to date with the benchmarks for both, when the time comes . In addition, lots of other interesting landmarks Zen 3 and RDNA 2 that still come with the evolving open-source / Linux state.
The most viewed AMD open-source / Linux news articles for 2020 on Phoronix included:
Linus Torvalds moves to AMD Ryzen Threadripper after 15 years of Intel systems
An interesting anecdote shared in today’s Linux 5.7-rc7 announcement is the word that the creator of Linux and Git, Linus Torvalds, changed his main platform to an AMD Ryzen Threadripper.
The AMD Radeon graphics driver represents approximately 10.5% of the Linux kernel
Given the imminent release of Linux 5.9, I had a blast today, looking at the current code counting lines for this near-final state of the Linux 5.9 kernel.
AMD Vs. Intel to the Linux kernel in the last decade
Motivated by curiosity, here’s a look at how the total number of AMD and Intel developers contributed to the upstream Linux kernel in 2010, as well as the total number of commissions each year from their 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 is set to launch a new laptop at least in Germany, which could be quite appealing to Linux users.
I ran AMD Ryzen 7 4700U + Ubuntu 20.04 as my main system
For about a month and a half I have been using AMD Ryzen 7 4700U as the main laptop, associated with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. It worked very well because it wasn’t even the top AMD Renoir SKU. Here are some additional comments for those thinking of one of the new AMD laptops using Linux.
Highlights of the Arch Linux Zen Kernel flavor
Following recent tests of Linux kernels on Liquorix and other discussions about the scheduler (and many more), there have been several requests from premium supporters to see the performance of Arch Linux’s Zen kernel package over the generic kernel. Here are those benchmark results.
A quick look at Blender 2.82 performance on Intel + AMD processors
Blender 2.82 was released on Friday, this weekend we started to refer to this new version of Blender as the leading open source 3D modeling solution available today. Here are some preliminary figures v2.81 vs. v2.82 on various state-of-the-art Intel and AMD processors.
Ryzen CPUs on Linux Finally check the CCD temperatures, current + voltage reporting
One of the few frustrations with AMD Ryzen CPU support on Linux so far has been in addition to the often delayed support for CPU temperature reporting, it has been the main kernel that does not support voltage readings and other additional sensors. But this is finally changing with the extension of the “k10temp” driver to include current and voltage reporting, plus CCD temperature reporting on Zen 2 processors.
Starting the rust-written Redox operating system with 128-wire AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X
The Rust-language-oriented Redox OS open source operating system is now able to start the 64-core / 128-thread AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X processor and run with full multi-threading capabilities.
ASUS TUF laptops with Ryzen are now linked to stop overheating on Linux
The experience of the AMD Ryzen Linux laptop continues to improve, although quite late in some elements of support. In addition to the final release of the AMD Sensor Fusion Hub driver and current / voltage reporting for Zen processors 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 for optimized code generation
Too bad it took so many months after the AMD Zen 2-based Ryzen and EPYC processors began shipping to see this build support, but the good news is that for the upcoming release of LLVM 10.0 is now the Zen 2 planning model being added to the “znver2” target.
AMD begins shipping PowerPC versions of their GPU compiler “AOMP”
AOMP is the AMD GPU compiler for OpenMP and HIP support on GPUs as part of the Radeon Open eCosystem 3.0 (ROCm 3.0). They have now started providing PowerPC LE 64-bit AOMP versions as part of the permission to do Radeon GPU computing on POWER9 systems.
A series of ACO optimizations for driver Radeon Vulkan landed in Mesa 20.0
The back-up for the valve-supported ACO compiler, which is optionally used by Radeon Vulkan RADV driver, has continued to grow in popularity among Linux gamers and has also continued to mature greatly for Mesa 20.0, which follows to be released this quarter.
Launched RenderDoc 1.6, NVIDIA + AMD + Intel All Primed For Vulkan 1.2
The launch of Vulkan 1.2 this morning started very well.
Mesa 20.0 released with major improvements for Intel, AMD Radeon Vulkan / OpenGL
Mesa 20.0 is now released as an update in the first quarter of 2020 of the Mesa 3D open-source graphics driver stack.
AMD Ryzen 4000 Mobile Series “Renoir” graphics are no longer experimental with Linux 5.5
While the Linux 5.5 kernel is expected to be released immediately this Sunday, a last-minute change to the AMDGPU DRM driver makes Renoir graphics no longer treated as experimental. With this, there is immediate open-source support, rather than being hidden behind a kernel module flag.
System76 can offer AMD Ryzen laptops when they start their own manufacturing
System76 is preparing to start delivery of the new Lemur Pro laptop in early April. It will be their most open laptop, although it is still based on Intel. But it seems that as they continue their ambitious plans to start making their own devices, we may finally see an AM76 System76-powered laptop.
FFmpeg 4.3 Released with AMD encoding AMF, Vulkan support, AV1 encoding
FFmpeg 4.3 is released as the latest version of this key open-source multimedia library. FFmpeg 4.3 is a fairly large version.
AMD is hiring another leading Linux Kernel developer to work on their graphics driver
If you have experience developing upstream Linux kernels, AMD hires a leading Linux kernel developer.
Updated k10temp Linux driver for AMD processors for better power / temperature analysis management
As we’ve been looking forward to for the past week, the k10temp driver for the Linux kernel has been updated for better AMD CPU temperature and voltage / current reporting. These improvements have evolved rapidly due to the work of the open-source community, with AMD still keeping the power / temperature registers close to their vests. A new version of k10temp was released on Wednesday.