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Linus Torvalds Comes Out Against "Completely Broken" x86_64 Feature Levels
With the new Linux kernel patches posted yesterday for cleaning up x86 32-bit kernels on x86_64 CPUs as part of that patch series was introducing new Kconfig build options around the x86_64 micro-architecture feature levels
As a refresher around the x86_64 micro-architecture feature levels, compiler toolchain folks came up with different levels/versions for representing common sets of x86_64 ISA extensions introduced over the years. Linus does raise a valid point on the linearization of the feature levels as Intel is currently stuck in an odd position given that their newer laptop/desktop CPUs do not support AVX-512 and then with AVX10 there is both 256-bit and 512-bit options, among other complexities in the handling. The creator of Linux further added that he's in favor of the reduced complexity of the x86_64 build options with most of the compiler tuning to specific CPUs not really being worthwhile for the kernel.
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