We have all had our PC crash at some point in our lives and the father of Linux several times, however, what has driven Linus Torvalds crazy is that a component of the PC still does not have a feature that is found in servers, neither more nor less than the correction of errors in the RAM. What are your arguments for requesting such a change? Is the father of the penguin operating system right in demanding such a change in hardware?
Imagine that you are programmers, and you have been compiling a large section of code for more than hours to find that suddenly a data in the system RAM has been slightly modified, sending the resulting binary to the fret. Well, that is what has happened to the Father of Linux when it comes to publishing an improvement to the kernel of his operating system.
Why has the PC crashed on the father of Linux?
We must start from the fact that those who end up deciding the specifications of the different types of RAM memory is the JEDEC, which publishes an extensive document that both parties have to follow strictly. On the one hand, the manufacturers of the memory modules or chips themselves, depending on the case, and on the other hand, the processor manufacturers and designers. However, for some time now, there seems to be a specification that separates server RAM from the ones used in home systems. The so-called ECC or Error Correction Code.
Well, during the development of the Linux kernel, the father of the free operating system did not hesitate to criticize this situation after seeing problems with his computer with an AMD processor, but it was not the company led by Lisa Su, to whom has criticized, but its rival, Intel and with the following words:
The only reason Intel says “ECC (memory) is only for servers and embedded systems” is because Intel’s marketing people have convinced everyone else that they can sell inferior chips for a high price if they have ECC functionality. . Look at the type of hcips that Intel sells with ECC, those that are seen next to the Xeon and systems with Intel Atom, they are usually not better.
Don’t fall for that shit the ECC is not for servers, it is for everyone And paying a little more for RAM shouldn’t mean you’re limited elsewhere.
The memories that our PCs use are of the dynamic type, which is why they tend to lose information from time to time and it is where the error correction mechanisms act in order to preserve the information. Unfortunately, in the RAM for home PCs, these mechanisms are not integrated.
Does Torvalds’ critique of Intel make sense?
Since the part that communicates the RAM with the processor is the integrated memory controller and it is located within the circuitry of the CPU, the answer is a resounding yes. It is Intel that has made it so that in the domestic market we do not have memories with ECC support and this has led to the fact that most manufacturers do not include it in the RAM memories that are sold.
The complaint of the veteran Finnish programmer has reason to be, it only takes a memory address to be modified to send a program to the fret and even crash a PC. This in servers that have to run 24/7 is fatal and that’s why error correcting memory is used, so Torvalds criticizing Intel for not having memory controllers with ECC support on your Intel Core laptops and desktops makes sense. And it is that if Intel did it immediately AMD would follow the path and with it also the manufacturers of DIMM and SO-DIMM modules, as well as those of motherboards.
