What's New in Linux 5.6? WireGuard VPN and USB4 (msn.com) 33
Linux 5.6 "has a bit more changes than I'd like," Linus Torvalds posted on the kernel mailing list, "but they are mostly from davem's networking fixes pulls, and David feels comfy with them. And I looked over the diff, and none of it looks scary..."
TechRadar reports that the new changes include support for USB4 and GeForce RTX 2000 series graphics cards with the Nouveau driver:
Yes, Turing GPU support has arrived with the open source Nouveau driver, along with the proprietary firmware images, as Phoronix.com reports. However, don't get too excited, as re-clocking doesn't work yet (getting the GPU to operate at stock clocks), and other important pieces of the puzzle are missing (like no Vulkan support with Nouveau). For the unfamiliar, Nouveau is an alternative to Nvidia's proprietary drivers on Linux, and although it remains in a relatively rough state in comparison, it's still good to see things progressing for Linux gamers with one of Nvidia's latest cards in their PC.
Linux 5.6 also introduces fresh elements on the AMD front, with better reset support for Navi and Renoir graphics cards (which helps the GPU recover if it hits a problem)... Another notable move is the introduction of WireGuard support, a newcomer VPN protocol which makes a potentially nifty alternative to OpenVPN.
Linux 5.6 also supports the Amazon Echo speaker, and naturally comes with a raft of other minor improvements...
Linus's post also notes that for the next release's timing they'll "play it by ear... It's not like the merge window is more important than your health, or the health of people around you." But he says he hasn't seen signs that the pandemic could affect its development (other than the possibility of distraction by the news).
"I suspect a lot of us work from home even normally, and my daughter laughed at me and called me a 'social distancing champ' the other day..."
Linux 5.6 also introduces fresh elements on the AMD front, with better reset support for Navi and Renoir graphics cards (which helps the GPU recover if it hits a problem)... Another notable move is the introduction of WireGuard support, a newcomer VPN protocol which makes a potentially nifty alternative to OpenVPN.
Linux 5.6 also supports the Amazon Echo speaker, and naturally comes with a raft of other minor improvements...
Linus's post also notes that for the next release's timing they'll "play it by ear... It's not like the merge window is more important than your health, or the health of people around you." But he says he hasn't seen signs that the pandemic could affect its development (other than the possibility of distraction by the news).
"I suspect a lot of us work from home even normally, and my daughter laughed at me and called me a 'social distancing champ' the other day..."
What? (Score:1)
comfy? (Score:1)
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Is that really the right word to use here?
It's fine with me. There's little reason to get weird about the word "comfy."
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It seems unprofessional and connotes a lazais attitude.
Everyone is by now familiar with Linus Torvalds and his personality. His work speaks for itself.
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"Professional" is a word that douche-bags use to sound self-important. Why don't you professionally suck my dick.
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Re:comfy? (Score:5, Insightful)
It *seems* unprofessional because it connotes some degree of uncertainty in the decision.
It *is* professional because there *is* some degree of uncertainty in the decision, which is perfectly understandable and which a true professional ought to transparently communicate.
Re:comfy? (Score:5, Insightful)
The LKML is their working tool for project communication, so all the casual talk you'd normally never see is in the open. This isn't a press release write-up of what's new in Linux 5.6 it's a short write-up of the patches between the last RC and the final release for those into the very fine details. We're not the intended audience, you just get to peek into their daily work. If you're looking for the sales pitch, well they don't really write those. They let Red Hat/Canonical/SUSE and all the other Linux distributions make the sales pitches. The kernel isn't actually very useful without a userspace, it's like a car engine with no car. They've built a new revision of the engine, but to most people it's not usable until there's either a new car model or a retrofit to their old one. And that's not anything the kernel project provides.
Re:comfy? (Score:4, Informative)
Lazais is a village in the middle of France. What has that to do with what Linus said?
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Is that really the right word to use here?
I believe this to be a perfectly cromulent use of the word.
"supports the Amazon Echo speaker"? (Score:3)
I'm curious as to what that means.
Does it do something to interact well with it?
Does it load and run on it, replacing what's there currently?
Does it load and run on it, replacing what's there currently, and still do all the stuff that it does (e.g. by running its apps with the underlying OS replaced)?
I'm sure I could come up with other scenarios, of variable desirability, that could also be called "supports". But I'd like to know what Linus meant (and if any of my possible readigns were close).
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It boots [phoronix.com]. And not much more, really. It sounds like you'd be better off with a Raspberry Pi, this seems more of a "I'll put Linux on my toaster because I can" project.
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USB4 (Score:1)
What cables will it use? Will there be another plague of out-of-spec cables killing devices? Will USB hubs continue to be utterly flakey pieces of shit?
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Yes.
USB4 == Thunderbolt 3 (Re:USB4) (Score:5, Informative)
What cables will it use? Will there be another plague of out-of-spec cables killing devices? Will USB hubs continue to be utterly flakey pieces of shit?
USB4 is simply rolling Thunderbolt 3 into the USB spec. Perhaps there will be some small features removed, some added, but for the most part USB4 is ThunderBolt 3.
What this means is that a USB4 port will use the USB-C connector and all cables made for Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.x will work. Thunderbolt 3 already specified that all ports on a host would have to support USB 3.x when using the USB-C connector, there's no reason to expect this to change with USB4. A Thunderbolt 3 device was not required to fallback to USB in cases where the host did not support Thunderbolt 3 but this was largely the case when appropriate. An appropriate fallback might be for a portable storage device where it might be expected the device might be moved from computer to computer. Where this expectation of falling back to USB 3.x speeds might not exist is with devices such as a 20Gbps network interface adapter, a RAID, or eGPU.
The cables USB4 uses are the same ones used by USB 3.x and Thunderbolt 3, and at the same or higher speed. Higher USB speeds would be available with these same cables since USB4 and USB 3.2 can use of all four high speed channels on the wire instead of just two. There's no reason to expect USB4 will bring another round of device killing cables. When it comes to "flaky" USB hubs my guess is you should stop buying cheap pieces of shit.
One thing that baffled me on USB hubs was the lack of hubs with multiple USB-C ports. I could find a hub quite easily that could plug in to a USB-C port and provide a number of USB-A ports. There were also numerous options for "mini-docks" that would have multiple USB-A ports, along with such options like Ethernet, flash card readers, video output, and perhaps a single USB-C port which might only support power input. At first I thought this was merely a lack of demand, that manufacturers thought few people would buy them. There's likely some truth to that. What I found out later was that the USB spec left out details on how a hub with multiple USB-C ports should act. It's quite possible that the USB4 spec clarified this and we will see USB hubs with multiple USB-C ports.
The docks I've seen with multiple USB-C ports have been specified as requiring Thunderbolt hosts to work. This implies to me that the docks contain a USB 3.x controller as opposed to a hub. This is confirmed with Thunderbolt docks that specify support for Thunderbolt 2 hosts as Thunderbolt 2 has no means of supporting the USB protocol on the wire natively.
Really all you need to know is that USB4 is just Thunderbolt 3 added to the USB 3.2 spec.
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One thing that baffled me on USB hubs was the lack of hubs with multiple USB-C ports.
USB hubs in general disappoint me for their lack of functionality. We have wall chargers with USB-PD providing 60W to devices. We have a USB-PD capable devices that happy power external equipment. We have USB "desk chargers" which look like hubs and provide various USB-PD or otherwise (BC1.2, QC3.0 etc) ports.
Why do we not yet have a hub that rolls this into one?
What I want sounds like it should be perfectly achievable:
- A USB hub which allows the data connection of various USB-C / USB-A devices.
- A USB hub
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Will there be another plague of out-of-spec cables killing devices?
Your cheap Chinese ones which don't meet the spec? Yes
Will USB hubs continue to be utterly flakey pieces of shit?
Your cheap Chinese ones which don't meet the spec? Yes
No thanks (Score:5, Funny)
Nice try, Linus, but I have it on good authority that GNU Hurd 1.0 GM is going to be released any day now!
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still writing code... (Score:2)
Linus is still writing code from time to time... From https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-56-features&num=2 [phoronix.com]