Linus Torvalds On The Importance Of ECC RAM, Calls Out Intel's "Bad Policies" Over ECC
There's nothing quite like some fun holiday-weekend reading as a fiery mailing list post by Linus Torvalds. The Linux creator is out with one of his classical messages, which this time is arguing over the importance of ECC memory and his opinion on how Intel's "bad policies" and market segmentation have made ECC memory less widespread.
Linus argues that error-correcting code (ECC) memory "absolutely matters" but that "Intel has been instrumental in killing the whole ECC industry with it's horribly bad market segmentation... Intel has been detrimental to the whole industry and to users because of their bad and misguided policies wrt ECC. Seriously...The arguments against ECC were always complete and utter garbage... Now even the memory manufacturers are starting [to] do ECC internally because they finally owned up to the fact that they absolutely have to. And the memory manufacturers claim it's because of economics and lower power. And they are lying bastards - let me once again point to row-hammer about how those problems have existed for several generations already, but these f*ckers happily sold broken hardware to consumers and claimed it was an "attack", when it always was "we're cutting corners"."
Ian Cutress from AnandTech points out in a reply that AMD's Ryzen ECC support is not as solid as believed.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday January 06 2021, @04:42AM (11 children)
No, stupid gamers don't use ECC.
Honestly, if this is your level of understanding, there's no point in trying to have a conversation. Ridicule alone is appropriate.
"Years ago RAM wasn't so reliable. Slowly it's gotten better, and parity RAM pretty much phased out."
The minor theoretical improvements in RAM reliability are more than offset by increased RAM density. You've got it bass-ackwards, in other words.
"I've had almost no RAM problems in more than 20 years."
That you correctly diagnosed.
"I run MemTest86 from time to time just to check, and no problems."
Oh? Obviously I was wrong, you're a genius, that's the gold standard right there. If memtest86 from time to time didn't diagnose a memory issue, then clearly you never had one - and if you never had one, then no one did. All in my mind.
"But if you're that worried, go with Xeon + ECC."
Yes, we're talking about the premium and less than certain availability of that choice.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Touché) by RS3 on Wednesday January 06 2021, @05:53AM (10 children)
Dude, what's your problem? I used to consider you a friend.
Why does everyone take a post as an absolute statement? In my real life, conversations evolve, interactively. Sorry if I didn't read your mind nor measure up to your standards of what the eff I'm supposed to post here.
Not sure what's wrong with you Arik but I truly hope you find some peace and happiness somewhere. Insults and attack me about effing RAM? I'm truly sorry I tried to contribute. I wish I could delete my posts.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @06:17AM (1 child)
I'll be your friend! Tell me what you want me to say.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday January 06 2021, @06:38AM
That Arik forgot to take his meds, but will take them and be better tomorrow.
Not sure if you meant to be funny, but thank you, sincerely, for a good laugh!
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday January 06 2021, @09:59PM (6 children)
Dude, what's your problem? I can no longer be your friend because I disagreed with something you posted? Really?
"Why does everyone take a post as an absolute statement?"
If that's how it's written, then how else would you expect anyone to take it? That's one of the reasons conversations go back and forth, isn't it?
"In my real life, conversations evolve, interactively."
Exactly.
"Sorry if I didn't read your mind nor measure up to your standards of what the eff I'm supposed to post here."
I don't even know what you mean, but I'm truly sorry if I offended you. I thought was just talking about RAM.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @06:28AM (5 children)
You changed the subject to "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid." and your post was dripping with derision. You had to know what you were doing.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday January 07 2021, @09:14AM (4 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @10:34AM (3 children)
I'm not telling you to change your tone. You can be as big of an asshole as you can live with and then some. I'm just telling you that you and everyone else knows exactly what you did and you should not act surprised and feign regret when you get called out for it. No one is falling for it and definitely not after that double down.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday January 08 2021, @10:40AM (2 children)
No, no, that's exactly what you're doing. And you should own it.
The one thing wrong with my post was tone. Wasn't the best, would have obviously been better received if I had sugar coated it. If I'd had a better day earlier I probably would have.
That's all the regret you'll get out of me on this. I'm not here to make friends, I don't believe in online friends even if I had the time. Had enough of that. I'm a voice in the wilderness and I'm crying from compulsion. You're not meant to be my friend, you're not meant to know who I am. You're meant to hear my words, if they are meant for you; and if not then to wonder why I howl for a fleeting instant, before shrugging your shoulders and going back to your life.
Since the "friend" crap started showing up on websites over 20 years ago I went through the wtf stage and got to the cannibalize stage. I mark an online "friend" in order to give a karma bonus to people that have demonstrated the ability to make interesting posts, in order to help ensure I see them in the future.
Interesting posts - not necessarily ones I agree with. Not nice posts, not even necessarily diplomatic posts (though making those is a skill that fascinates me as it is so alien and does draw extra attention from me) but telling posts. Ones that cut right through the distractions and strike the root.
They're a minority of posts, no one hits that goal every time /and I don't want anyone to think they need to./
If you post absolute garbage 9 times out of 10, and really make me think that last 1, I'll "friend" you and keep you there. I might reply to the garbage posts, call them garbage posts, might get you so upset you "unfriend" me and so on... worst case.
Don't care, doesn't matter. It's not a relationship. It's a flag in a database.
This is not social media.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @12:37AM (1 child)
Still pretending. So sad. But not as sad as if you weren't. Either you regret it or you don't. But don't pretend like you do and don't at the same time. Either own it or don't.
P.S. As an aside, you may want to look up the definition of "social media."
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday January 12 2021, @01:05AM
Aristotelian nonsense. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:15PM
C'mon, it's pretty obvious that Arik is a total asshat. The fact that he insists on posting everything in Arik Mono is evidence enough.