[Discuss] Issues with new Linux computer mostly addressed

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2019-09-01 16:18-0700 Alan W. Irwin wrote:

> After the BIOS upgrade this AMD Ryzen 7 1700 computer with AMD RX 550
> graphics card has been up for 29 days and counting without a lockup!
> This is for heavy Linux desktop use by two simultaneous users (one
> who uses direct display with the RX 550 and the other who uses a thin
> client (X-terminal) to display their desktop for this computer).
>
> So it is looking good so far, but I will be a lot surer this is the
> ultimate solution to this ~1-year headache if this AMD computer
> achieves ~60 days of uptime with this current non-standard kernel and
> also if I am able to follow up by similar good stability results for
> ~60 days for a standard Linux kernel.

The status now is at 60 days I successfully completed without lockups
the uptime test for the non-standard kernel I used for my previous
stability testing, and my current uptime numbers (as determined by the
"w" command) with the standard kernel are

13:43:27 up 92 days,  2:52, 24 users,  load average: 0.30, 0.27, 0.20

and counting (until the next reboot caused by a power outage or kernel
upgrade).

So from these outstanding stability results, I can highly recommend
this hardware (and likely AMD Ryzen's in general) for heavy Linux
desktop use and especially for parallel workloads.  This particular
system has 16 hardware threads (8 CPU's with two hardware threads per
CPU), and that really does translate according to my tests to a factor
of roughly 16 in speed for ideal parallel workloads (such as compiling
many different source code files at the same time).  And its price is
substantially less than Intel CPU's with an equivalent number of
hardware threads.

The big caveat, of course, is AMD brought this system to market with a
BIOS that caused instability issues.  However, that issue is likely
something you should look for (with both AMD and Intel tending to rush
to quickly to market) if any system you buy is initially unstable (as
in this case for me).

Alan
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Alan W. Irwin

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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