Having trouble finding an answer to what I thought was a simple question.

There are currently eleven generations of Intel Core processors with different "microarchitectures", but they are all x86-64 architecture (which of course Linux supports).

So when 12th generation "Alder Lake" comes out, will it require a new/recent kernel to be fully supported, or work with no issues because it's still x86-64 and the differences don't matter at a kernel level?

I found a commit that suggests it may be the former, but I can't find a list of versions at which each CPU micro-architecture is considered supported.

Specifically, I want to know:

• What is the newest Intel Core processor fully supported by Debian 11's kernel (v5.10.46)?
• Is it safe to consider an 11th Gen Rocket Lake for use with Bullseye?

To be "fully supported" may require the latest-and-greatest". To be usable usually doesn't. Intel releases its specs early, and the support for the CPU gets included early too. What's actually on the mother-board may be a different matter - I once had a non-functioning system due to a jmicron chip. Only solution was to sit on Linus' latest tree till a fix came through. Very unusual I would think.

So .... it depends.

For the most part Intel has been a huge supporter of linux. They tend to supply the code for their products. This kind of assumes the entire board is Intel technology. Any Intel product in other boards and associated chipsets may not be fully working. That support would need to be added usually to kernel for processors. Saying that however won't usually stop you from running some very older AMD64 distros.

One usually looks at kernel.org or other sites for the changes to linux that may include adding or disabling features.

If Phonorix don't test it. Then I don't pay attention.

Shotgun link

Probably not right away because 5.13 kernel is mentioned in my shotgun link.

https://www.newsbreak.com/news/22259...el-cpu-support

Borrowed from of course https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...5.13-Turbostat

1 members found this post helpful.

It would be interesting to know if there's some sort of timetable for how Debian devs do this.
As a starting poiint, take the freeze for testing, which occured months ago.
Then try to figure out what new features they still decided to take in there, and what not. No idea if there's rules for that, if reading the appropriate mailing list helps ...

Obviously, in time there will be OS updates and/or a suitable backported kernel.

The question is really much more complex than it appears.

Generally speaking, I believe CPU manufacturers are interested in backward compatibility, but also in adding new, improved features...

Thanks everyone.

Which only increases my expectation of a pre-calculated answer - it seems odd that I'd be the first person to ask this, and if it's not simple the relevant information should be published somewhere prominent. :/

Intel publicly released Rocket Lake on 30 March 2021 - before full freeze (18 July), but after the hard freeze (12 March).
However, the commits I found before were from November 2020 - which makes sense, prepping the kernel before the hardware is released.

Looking again, I also found a commit in the changelog for 5.4.118 that says "This adds support for the Trace Hub in Rocket Lake CPUs." dated 14 April 2021 - i.e. could be a six months delay before the previous long-term kernel had it added, and/or might be because the processor had just started being used.


The Phoronix link says:
But I take this as saying the tool can accurately identify them, not necessarily that the 5.13 kernel fully supports them (though as above it would make sense if it did.)


Good reminder - it would be nice to not change the motherboard, but seems to be unavoidable since it's an older socket.

Looking into things, I saw one board that supports both 10th/11th gen CPUs, but falls back from PCI 4 to PCI 3 on the older ones - that wouldn't be relevant to me right now, but useful to keep in mind. It looks like Comet Lake 10th gen CPUs are available with more cores, which could be more useful.

Of course, if the motherboard is changing, that potentially makes AMD CPUs an option, but that just adds more complexity and research to the decision.

In general the answer is 'yes it will work' - thats how Rocket Lake was supported at least, for example. The point on motherboard devices is a good one (and brand new platforms usually bring brand new auxiliary controllers that may lag on support). Another point, and this applies to Alder Lake more specifically, is if the new CPU requires different scheduling to be performant (which Alder Lake does, because it is the first-ever big.LITTLE design on x86), you will see explicit changes in performance with kernel updates (this was the case for AMD's CMT chips and later Ryzen too, as they were successively tuned). Intel will probably provide some guidance on this and it should be relatively painless over time, but specifically with Alder Lake I'd be a little hesitant to be a pre-order early adopter because its pushing a lot of brand new features and tech in a single platform jump and I'd expect some teething pains (some random examples beyond being big.LITTLE: it also brings DDR5, PCIe 5, builds WiFi and Thunderbolt into the CPU, etc).

Also as a point of clarification: there are not '11 generations of separate microarchitectures' - there's '11 generations' of marketed families (which doesn't even really 'work out' - Intel plays fast and loose with 'generation' on consumer platforms), but by actual uarch its probably more like 4 or 5 going all the way back to Nehalem in 2009. Alder Lake will be a pretty significant/new uarch relative to the last ~5 years.