1y ago

Linus Torvalds suggests disabling AMD's 'stupid' fTPM to solve a persistent stuttering issue | The problem affects Ryzen-based PCs running both Windows and Linux

www.techspot.com Linus Torvalds suggests disabling AMD's "stupid" fTPM to solve a persistent stuttering issue

In a characteristically outspoken manner, Torvalds told his colleagues to "disable the stupid fTPM HWRND thing" since the fixes that have been rolled out have largely been...

Linus Torvalds suggests disabling AMD's 'stupid' fTPM to solve a persistent stuttering issue | The problem affects Ryzen-based PCs running both Windows and Linux::undefined

33 comments

I remember 5 years ago when Linus said he would work to show more restraint in swearing out vendors... and it's just hit me how well that worked. He didn't use a single swear word--in English or Finnish--and kept his negative sentiment focused on the implementation, rather than the people who did it, or their intelligence.
- I still agree with his sentiment towards Nvidia.
- If I, remember correctly he went to therapy for couple of months.

Glad to see Linus giving this more visibility. There was a huge forum thread on the LTT Forums about users with this issue when Microsoft announced that Windows 11 would require TPM. AMD has attempted to fix it and the fixes have been completely ineffective on my system (B450 chipset using both a Ryzen 3700X and a 5800X).
On the plus side, I don't get Windows reminding me to upgrade to 11 on my desktop because it thinks it is incompatible!
- The thing is, Windows 11 doesn't even need TPM - it's just an arbitrary flag the installer looks for - which can easily be bypassed using a registry key - but MS have conveniently decided not to make a GUI for this, nor publicize that it can be bypassed by the end user.
  All of this is just a conspiracy by Microsoft and it's OEM partners (mainly Intel) to generate more sales.
  
  I don't think it's that. I think they just want to force manufacturers and users to have TPMs. They don't want some users having one and some not, it's easier when you know every device has one.
  
  It’s been a very effective way to keep them from updating my system to windows 11. But that’s about all it’s done
- Linus Torvalds Tips has a forum‽
- I don't get that anymore... But for months my windows 10 was still trying to upgrade automatically despite my PC never having TPM. Only to fail every time of course. Now it's finally acknowledging that it's "incompatible" too.
  I have a Ryzen that's supposed to be fTPM capable but since I saw lots of performance complaints I never switched it on.

The treacherous platform module has always been malware
- Trusted computing has always given me the heebee jeebees. Why should users have to put trust in the vendor? Why should the vendor be able to potentially enforce DRM on my machine, where I want nothing even remotely resembling DRM in my machine's hardware or firmware? If I want to use software with DRM (Steam for example), I will specifically install it. If I want to use Secure Boot to verify the boot signatures of my machine, it damn well better be keys that are exclusively mine.
  I prefer the idea of trustless computing, where everything is open source and all of the security implementations are verifiably secure and publicly auditable.
  
  Treacherous computing is evil to the core. It's a plot to destroy the very idea of general purpose computers.
- It's not just for that. It's useful also for allowing storing your data safely. For example to keep fingerprints safe or other similar information.
  
  If it was for that, it'd be locked with my keys, not some megacorp's. The concept of treacherous computing is to let the corpos trust your computer to betray you for their profits.

Linux::undefined
Good bot. If this isn't a distro yet it should be.
- It's GNU/Linux::undefined!
  
  Easy, Richard. Let’s get you home.
- be the change you want to see in the world!

Lets hope that AMD can read that hint...

And there I was happy to purchase an AMD Ryzen laptop a few months ago. After the laptop keyboard problems (very slow typing due to faulty IRQ overrides, Mario Limonciello submitted a patch but it's still not part of any stable release, you have to patch the sources yourself), now it turns out the occasional stuttering is also because of AMD.
- Update your bios. A new driver update has fixed this.
  Linux kernel 6.2 fixed this too I think
  
  My BIOS is up-to-date and no the 6.2 doesn't fix it. Mario himself said his patch will be part of one of the 6.5 rc's (and it looks like it's already part of the current rc). Until then, anyone with a recent Ryzen CPU and a laptop keyboard needs to apply the patch manually on the current versions.

Would a physical tpm solve the stuttering?
- A physical tpm is causing the stuttering.
  
  fTPM is firmware TPM, it is not physical.

Running both Windows and Linux
Yeah but what if I'm not dual booting?

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