PSA: Customers operating Linux on laptops with Intel processors ought to keep away from Linux Kernel 5.19.12 as a consequence of an error that may bodily hurt the show. Luckily, kernel 5.19.13 has already mounted the difficulty. Variations 6.0 and 6.1 have additionally begun rolling out with many important modifications.
Current studies from Intel laptop computer customers operating Linux Kernel 5.19.12 describe “white flashing” on their screens. A Linux engineer discovered that the difficulty may spoil the LCD, urging customers to instantly roll again to an earlier iteration. The crucial flaw prompted builders to concern 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, stated that customers ought to solely improve to the brand new kernel in the event that they’re experiencing this concern.
In keeping with Tom’s {Hardware}, the issue impacts any Intel-based laptop computer that immediately wires the built-in show to the built-in graphics. All Nvidia Optimus laptops and probably some Intel-Radeon mixed notebooks may face this concern as a result of they at all times let the iGPU management the display, even when the devoted GPU is rendering the graphics. Your laptop computer is perhaps secure in case you can disable Optimus mode.
Most Linux customers probably have to attend till kernel 5.19.13 is offered for his or her particular distro. The engineers inspecting the LCD downside did not say whether or not the newly-released kernels 6.0 and 6.1 additionally embody 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 help 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 methods decode {hardware} errors quicker, although it is unclear if that features the LCD concern. The brand new EDAC driver error decoder is quicker than the standard firmware decoder however can nonetheless fall again to it if wanted.