PSA: Customers working Linux on laptops with Intel processors ought to keep away from Linux Kernel 5.19.12 on account of an error which may bodily hurt the show. Happily, kernel 5.19.13 has already fastened the difficulty. Variations 6.0 and 6.1 have additionally begun rolling out with many important modifications.
Current experiences from Intel laptop computer customers working Linux Kernel 5.19.12 describe “white flashing” on their screens. A Linux engineer discovered that the difficulty may break the LCD, urging customers to right away roll again to an earlier iteration. The crucial flaw prompted builders to subject a fast replace.
The issue seems to originate from a defective Intel graphics driver, which Linux kernel engineer Ville Syrjäl describes as a nasty panel energy sequencing delay. Greg Kroah-Hartman, the developer who launched 5.19.13, mentioned that customers ought to solely improve to the brand new kernel in the event that they’re experiencing this subject.
Based on Tom’s {Hardware}, the issue impacts any Intel-based laptop computer that straight wires the built-in show to the built-in graphics. All Nvidia Optimus laptops and probably some Intel-Radeon mixed notebooks may face this subject as a result of they all the time let the iGPU management the display, even when the devoted GPU is rendering the graphics. Your laptop computer may be secure if you happen to can disable Optimus mode.
Most Linux customers probably have to attend till kernel 5.19.13 is on the market for his or her particular distro. The engineers analyzing the LCD drawback did not say whether or not the newly-released kernels 6.0 and 6.1 additionally embrace fixes for the difficulty.
Launched for many main distros this week, Linux Kernel 6.0 helps the latest {hardware} architectures, together with Raptor Lake, Meteor Lake, Arc Alchemist, and RDNA 3. It additionally marks a begin for the working system’s entrance into Arm by introducing assist for the Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon laptops. Moreover, the brand new kernel fixes a vestigial 20-year-old workaround that slows down latest AMD processors.
Kernel 6.1 closes a major Bluetooth safety gap and makes the primary steps in the direction of supporting the Rust programming language, which Google makes use of to develop Android. One other addition is a brand new Error Detection and Correction (EDAC) driver that lets Intel techniques decode {hardware} errors quicker, although it is unclear if that features the LCD subject. The brand new EDAC driver error decoder is quicker than the standard firmware decoder however can nonetheless fall again to it if wanted.