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Comment by liuliu | Hacker News Reader

Updated to 3970x a few days ago. The performance has been good (llvm compiles around 5 minutes!) and it is stable (previous 2920x has soft lockups and have to workaround with idle=halt: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=196683). Ubuntu 20.04 installed without much issue (other than NVIDIA driver, that's a different story).

It is still rough though, mostly around the mobo. The Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme mobo doesn't work out of the gate: https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabyte/comments/enatk1/gigabyte_t..., https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/ankjfx/inte...

Ubuntu 18.04 also has an issue with the dated kernel on 3970x: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Bo... that can be workaround by mce=off. Due to combination of that and NVIDIA driver, I did 20.04, and it has been stable so far.

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I think Gigabyte Aorus line is just entirely screwed up.

Never had any issues with any of my desktop hardware before. Did a 3900X+Gigabyte Aorus Elite X570 build in december. Aside from overheating and throttling issues (which I mostly sorted out), everything was fine for a while, but then my mobo straight up died in February. I tried everything possible with no success, it wouldn't even get to the BIOS screen, not even talking about the OS load screen. The error code on the mobo was pointing at the GPU, but that definitely wasn't it (that GPU worked fine for years before, and currently works fine in my build after I got rid of that Gigabyte mobo).

Then I saw a friend doing a build in March with the same components. I didn't think much of my mobo dying, since random accidents happen, so I didn't really discourage him from getting the same mobo. His mobo died on day 2 after the build.

I got a X570 asus mobo instead as a replacement, and had zero issues since. Neither with stability/perf nor with overheating. Aside from swapping the mobo and adding an extra SSD, I had made zero changes to my build, so I blame solely the mobo.

I have a Gigabyte B450 I AORUS PRO (Mini ITX) for my 3900X. Didn't had any issues so far, apart from the initial Windows installation being a bit tricky because it bluescreen due to a missing Intel Wifi driver.

Things are running stable, and I didn't had any overheating issue (even though people told me that board would never work due to too week VRMs on B450 series).

> Gigabyte B450 I AORUS PRO

My bad, I should've specified that I was talking about their X570 AORUS lineup, not all AORUS mobos in general, that one is on me. Since yours is B450, I wouldn't expect the same issues to surface as in the X570 mobos, makes sense.

I want a desktop linux machine that "just works" (is that so unreasonable?). Is it genrally safe to buy a Ryzen? I've seen so many mixed messages.

Every linux distro I have tried works fine with my Ryzen 3900X. Ubuntu 18/19/20. Maybe threadripper had some extra issues early but its likely fine now.

The only Ryzen/Linux issue I've heard of is on launch week of Zen2 some distros of Linux were broken by an AMD bug which was fixed pretty quick.

In fact performance is better for many cored Ryzens than windows usually.

If you stick with 1 or 2 GPUs and common mainstream motherboards, more recent Linux distro (Ubuntu 20.04). You will be fine. The most problem I had is due to the "high-end" motherboard.

I have a Ryzen 9 3900X with Archlinux and it is working just fine without any issues.

Few months back I put together Ryzen 3950x with an ASUS X570-ACE motherboard. Has been completely painless running Fedora. With a Gen3 Ryzen and a mainstream linux distro you probably can't go wrong.

https://system76.com/desktops

If you want something that just works, buy something with Linux preinstalled and supported. If no vendor offers the distro you want, buy from a Linux vendor anyway and install what you want. When people buy Windows hardware then complain that Linux doesn't work it sends the wrong message to the market.

> If you want something that just works, buy something with Linux preinstalled and supported.

System76 is known for simply rebranding cheap Clevo/Sager laptops.

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17039414

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17049463

Just because they are not doing their own hardware does not mean that they don't test their drivers/firmware.

They are buying Clevo gear and slapping their logo on it. A sticker with a 40% markup does not change hardware support. In fact, if you take the time to read the links I've presented you'll eventually stumble on comments stating that they even fail to support basic hardware shipped by Clevo such as fingerprint readers.

The original comment asked about desktops, not laptops.

Figuring out which Clevo laptops can run Linux and which ones can't is work that is worth money.

I read the comments in that HN thread. The comments were way more salty than needed. Calling pop os a custom ghetto did not age well in 2020.

That runs somewhat contrary to the reason why people build their own computers.

I have a home server with 32GB of RAM that's been up 24/7. I've been running Debian testing on it. I started with Ryzen 1700, then upgraded to Ryzen 2700. It's been running a dozen of VMs with Windows and Linux. Linux VMs run services like Samba, Kubernetes, Postgres and photo sharing albums inside. Windows VMs are used to run photo editing software, so it's not idle at all. I also compile Golang projects on that box frequently. The current uptime of the entire thing is 92 days since last reboot, which was intentional (new kernel). So... quite stable.

But when I bought it a couple of years ago, I experienced some lock-ups, about once a month, especially when the CPU was idle. I replaced the "gamer" motherboard with [1] and the problems disappeared. I think a lot, but possibly not all, of problems you see online are caused by gaming community itself. For whatever reason, that culture/market is plagued by premature/buggy product launches (motherboard+UEFI) and oftentimes CPU has nothing to do with user issues.

[1] https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=X...

Interesting. What are you using for sound? The HDMI-out from the GPU?

TBH I don't use sound, and the GPU there is very basic ASpeed chip, the primary "UI" is IPMI, it's a server motherboard after all.

But when you connect to a Windows VM via RDP, there's an option to pipe sound back to the client via a virtual sound card. On a gigabit ethernet, you can watch Youtube videos this way. :)

I've had a first gen Threadripper and ASrock X399 board from right around launch and they've just worked the entire time (ECC RAM). The first gen Ryzen (desktop) parts had some issues that required RMAs for some end-users, but that was 2-3 generations ago.

I've been really happy with my Ryzen 9 3900X on a ASUS X570-PLUS AM4 TUF motherboard [0], with 64GB of RAM and a reused GeForce GTW 970 (built this Feb).

No-drama install on Ubuntu 19.10 (18.04 didn't boot due to drivers?). No kernel panics or even X lockups. It's wonderful to have such a fast development box.

If the stock cooler is too loud, the Noctua NH-D15 is silent until full load when it just audibly whispers.

(I'd been developing PhotoStructure on older hardware to make inefficient code paths more immediately painful, but I needed a beefer box to replicate parallelism issues that some of my beta users were seeing. Thankfully, those issues were immediately apparent, and library syncs are dramatically faster now).

[0] https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/TUF-GAMING-X570-PLUS/

My suggestion is to get a tower server from a good brand that fits your needs. My workhorse box is an aging Xeon E3 "server" that has been running Linux flawlessly from day one. It's replacement will probably be a similar box. You can go all the way from low-end server to MacPro-killer monster (dual socket Xeon Platinum, multiple GPU boards, insane disk IO and a couple terabytes of RAM) directly from Dell's website.

I bought a 3700X in September, two months after they were released. (took a while for prices/supply to stabilize) I have never had any problems with it.

Linux problems only crop up with heavily integrated custom systems. Typically laptops that cram a ton of shit into the smallest possible space, and then try to work around incompatibilities with extensive driver customization. Typically, if you can wipe a system's hard disk, install Windows on it, and only install drivers from the chipset manufacturer rather than from the brand of the laptop, and everything works, you'll be fine. But if your Lenovo laptop has a Realtek wireless chip in it, and the driver downloaded directly from Realtek is flaky, but the driver downloaded from Lenovo works, it will be flaky in Linux too. The laptop brand isn't going to spend the money to monkey with some weird driver because they like spending money - they're spending that money because they're doing something the chipset maker doesn't support.

These problems almost never happen on desktops with full sized ATX motherboards. First of all, the expectation is that you'll buy a copy of Windows and the motherboard manufacturer doesn't have the opportunity to slip in their pile of custom drivers and other assorted crapware into a custom Windows install. Second, with plenty of space on the motherboard there's no need for fancy tricks that fall down when you look at them funny.

Knock on wood, I've had good luck with the Aorus Master from Gigabyte. The only thing I'm missing support for (and not a dealbreaker) is S/PDIF for digital audio out on Linux.

I had no install issues. It ran rock solid under several days of memtest86 and prime95, the latter on both Windows and Linux.

My only "complaint" is that it cannot maintain full turbo indefinitely on even a beefy air cooling setup in a big case with massive airflow. I have 7x140mm fans in the case and on the cooler. The case maintains ambient temperature, except for the (short) stream of air from the CPU cooler to the rear exhaust. Under sustained synthetic load, the CPU will run at >4.4GHz all-core until the heat sink is saturated (usually ~10 minutes), and then slowly stabilize down to a 3.9GHz-4.1GHz range for all cores and stay there. An eventual project will be a water cooling loop with much radiator surface area.

I have a first-gen Ryzen system (the one that people have had issues with on linux) with an NVIDIA graphics card.

PopOS has been rock solid on it. I have 19.10 but will be upgrading to 20.04 this weekend. As someone who doesn't want to spend all day futzing around with my system and just get work done, I'm very happy with this distro.

Same boat, pop_os and Mint have both been super stable

I did the consumer 3700X. The Asrock micro ATX x570 board worked w/o problems. Well, except for the fact I bought "registered memory" instead of ECC....wooops. But once corrected I haven't had any problems. Had to throw in a GeForce 1030 card for monitor support but has been running Ubuntu for admitted basic fileserver needs w/o a hitch.

I assume the more common consumer processors have been tested more than the thread ripper ones, being they are more common and out longer.

You have Registered ECC and Unregistered ECC memory. Both are ECC. As far as I know.

Registered ECC memory is for larger amounts, mostly used in servers or extreme workstations.

Registered (or not) is somewhat orthogonal to ECC (or not):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_memory

In reality, registered non-ECC is uncommon because the situations that create the need for RDIMMs typically coincide with the need for ECC.

AMD explicitly does not support registered DIMMS in TR and Ryzen memory controllers for SKU stratification purposes.

For TR and Ryzen you have to buy unregistered DIMMs, aka UDIMMs. This is documented on the data sheets for the CPUs as well as the motherboards.

I run Ubuntu 20.04 on 3700x/Gigabyte Aorus Ultra/2080ti/32gb ram/970 evo plus and so far everything is OK, although I can't seem to pair my headphones via bluetooth. Had some lock ups with vscode but that seems to have been fixed.

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