Users can make Linux work much faster

Window-centric hardware management has been plaguing Linux machines since 2002.

In order to maintain efficiency, processors with billions of transistors have long-needed sophisticated interfaces between an operating system and hardware, such as the chips that have been slowing down your Linux laptop.

Even though the outgoing APM standard was replaced by the most recent ACPI standard in 1996, more than 25 years ago, it nevertheless had a significant defect.

When using third-party chips like AMD CPUs, computer experts rarely consider Linux distributions or macOS because they primarily test on the industry-standard operating system, which for a long time has been Windows.

Apple has discovered a way to improve overall performance with the CPUs it uses in its devices by introducing its own silicon. The company’s M-series semiconductors are currently in their second generation; however, this is an expensive solution that the Linux Foundation cannot afford.

According to Linus Torvalds, the man behind Linux, “ACPI is a total design failure in every respect. But it seems like we’re stuck with it. If any Intel employees are reading this and you were involved with ACPI in any way, shoot yourself right now to prevent further reproduction.”

When problematic machines took a long time to reply to STPCLK# signals—which decide whether a core should idle—the issue was discovered. As a result, power efficiency decreased, and as a solution, some dummy I/O instructions were added.

The false instructions on AMD’s CPUs are still being followed by Linux workstations, even though this is no longer a concern, according to AMD expert K Prateek Nayak. Meanwhile, The Register says that Intel’s Dave Hansen has released a “hasty fix,” which restricts the workaround to just be present on Intel chips, which won’t be impacted because they employ a separate approach for core indolence. As a result, the mean throughput and minimum throughput are both stated to have grown by about 14 times.

In the end, even as we head into the 2020s, a large portion of the third-party hardware we see on the market is still created primarily with Windows in mind, and it’s probable that modifications made by keen engineers will continue to push advancements for less well-known operating systems over time.