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Linus Fixes Kernel Regression Breaking Witcher 2
jones_supa writes There has been quite a debate around the Linux version of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and the fact that it wasn't really a port. A special kind of wrapper was used to make the Windows version of the game run on Linux systems, similar to Wine. The performance on Linux systems took a hit and users felt betrayed because they thought that they would get a native port. However, after the game stopped launching properly at some point, the reason was actually found to be a Linux regression. Linus quickly took care of the issue on an unofficial Witcher 2 issue tracker on GitHub: "It looks like LDT_empty is buggy on 64-bit kernels. I suspect that the behavior was inconsistent before the tightening change and that it's now broken as a result. I'll write a patch. Serves me right for not digging all the way down the mess of macros." This one goes to the bin "don't break userspace". Linus also reminds of QA: "And maybe this is an excuse for somebody in the x86 maintainer team to try a few games on steam. They *are* likely good tests of odd behavior.."
Linux is a mess. I am trying to run Debian Wheezy (stable!) on "fully supported" laptop without any binary blob in the kernel or X server and the number of glitches and bugs is staggering: in two days of use I found that closing the lid doesn't put the laptop to sleep every time, sometimes usb drives aren't listed by 'lsblk' and of course there's no drive in the userland (gnome) then, display manager (gdm3) does not always lock the screen ... I'm giving up.