Linux vs. latest Intel processors

taylorkh · 06-30-2019, 04:02 PM

I came across an advertisement on techbargains.com for a Dell XPS 8930 deal. It is based in the i9-9900 CPU. The Dell page had this interesting note:

Quote:

Systems configured with an Intel® 8th Gen or later CPU are designed to run optimally with the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system. Removing the factory-installed operating system to run a non-Windows 10 operating system (such as Windows 7 or Windows 8) may make the product ineligible for return to Dell for a refund or cause system instability and performance issues that may not be covered by your warranty, support, or service agreements.

I understand that the newest CPUs support Optane memory which is a Windows (10?) only feature. Is there some other reason why these CPUs would be Windows 10 only? Of course Dell's support for Linux is somewhat spotty.

TIA,

Ken

Timothy Miller · 06-30-2019, 04:13 PM

Well, you'd need a very recent kernel to have full support for the 9th series core processors and if it was configured with an RTX card, again, you'd need a very recent kernel. However beyond that, there's nothing specific that would prevent it from working with linux. I'm sure there's some people on the forums already running 9th gen. I know there's TONS of people running 8th gen (myself included) without issues, and coffee lake is just yet another rehash and mild improvement of skylake from kaby refresh or 8th gen coffee lake (they added spectre hardware patches).

taylorkh · 06-30-2019, 08:32 PM

Thanks Timothy Miller,

Just looking at the moment. I got ahead of myself a few years back. I picked up a Black Friday deal on an XPS. I think it had an i7-6700. Could not get it to boot CentOS nor Ubuntu. Just sent it back and waited. A year later I purchased a Precision Workstation 3620 with the same processor and Ubuntu pre-installed by Dell. Replaced it with CentOS 7 and added an nVidia K620 card. Works fine and I really do not need any more power most of the time.

Ken

Timothy Miller · 06-30-2019, 09:55 PM

Well, that would be normal, but the 9th gen processors are, at their heart, still the same as the 6th gen processors. Literally 7th, 8th, and 9th gen are all just refinements of the Sky Lake (6th gen). 10th gen will be the first actual new process since Sky Lake.

taylorkh · 07-01-2019, 07:16 AM

I wonder if the 10th generation will fix some of the hardware vulnerabilities? Perhaps I will wait and see.

Ken

Timothy Miller · 07-01-2019, 09:33 AM

9th gen has some of the hardware fixes, 10th gen is supposed to have almost all currently known spectre & variant vulnerabilities patched in hardware.