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Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

arstechnica.com

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Re: Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

#21

Post by kodah »

happytoexplain wrote: post #7
mikece wrote: post #3

I absolutely love that Linus speaks his mind. Candor and telling it honestly is getting rarer...

Unfortunately, "candor and telling it honestly" is frequently code for "I want to be hostile toward people I don't like, but I don't want to experience social consequences for it", so there's a lot of noise in the interpretation of this space.

Linus has since apologized for his words and actions against people, worked to correct them, and has been maintaining a pretty good track record so far. Your generalization falls short of reality unfortunately. It is possible to use candor and "tell it like it is" without degrading people, which is exactly what you see here.

Re: Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

#22

Post by spicybright »

kodah wrote: post #15
spicybright wrote: post #5

While I don't think he should be flipping the bird, his technical arguments are absolutely spot on. An aside question for readers: How often does RAM error, and is it a significant problem in practice? I don't have any direct experience with this (that I could tell) using consumer computers for the past 15-odd years of programming.

> While I don't think he should be flipping the bird, his technical arguments are absolutely spot on. Linus is certainly known for some inappropriate rants against people which he has since toned down, apologized for, and worked to correct. That said, this image is taken from an event where Linus was prompted about Nvidia in 2012 during some filming. For those who don't use Linux, these times were extremely chaotic i…

Ah, thank for you for the explanation on the pic. I definitely remember that being a huge issue in 2012.

Re: Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

#23

Post by taneq »

spicybright wrote: post #5

While I don't think he should be flipping the bird, his technical arguments are absolutely spot on. An aside question for readers: How often does RAM error, and is it a significant problem in practice? I don't have any direct experience with this (that I could tell) using consumer computers for the past 15-odd years of programming.

I think a measured dose of profanity has its place as a way to emphasise a point beyond what stern wording can convey.

That said, I also would like to know more about how often RAM errors actually happen. My gut feeling is that on mass produced consumer hardware, software errors FAR outweigh hardware errors in terms of how much they inconvenience me personally. Maybe the very occasional "that's weird" moments where a restart fixed it were hardware errors but they're few and far between. That's just a feeling, though, and I like numbers.

Re: Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

#24

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

mywittyname wrote: post #16

The market killed ECC for consumers. It used to be widely available to desktop class hardware (I used to have some), but it was slower and more expensive than non-ECC RAM. None of the marketing-types made a good case for why normal people should pay more money for less-performant hardware, so the market disappeared. Even the security issues only meaningfully impact servers. People like Linus can buy server-class hard…

> so the market disappeared.

So your claim is that it has nothing to do with Intel's product segmentation strategy?

Re: Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

#25

Post by spicybright »

Bluecobra wrote: post #10

Makes me think how many blue screens/crashes I've experienced over the years on my desktop could have been avoided by ECC. On a global level, think of all of that time & productivity lost due to an arbitrary policy/penny pinching.

Capitalism drives tech forward, and then very quickly stifles it once it's proven you can sell it.

It's sad thinking of where we could be today if mega-corps had less incentive to do this.

Edit: to the down voter, please explain why you think my opinion is wrong?

Re: Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

#26

Post by [deleted] »

slingnow wrote: post #13
happytoexplain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, "candor and telling it honestly" is frequently code for "I want to be hostile toward people I don't like, but I don't want to experience social consequences for it", so there's a lot of noise in the interpretation of this space.

Do you have any evidence for this claim?

[deleted]

Re: Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

#27

Post by enragedcacti »

slingnow wrote: post #13
happytoexplain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, "candor and telling it honestly" is frequently code for "I want to be hostile toward people I don't like, but I don't want to experience social consequences for it", so there's a lot of noise in the interpretation of this space.

Do you have any evidence for this claim?

I'm not sure what 'evidence' would be satisfying to you for something like this, but maybe something about the man himself will help you understand what he means?

https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/after-years-of-ab...

tl;dr for the article: “Please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place” - Linus Torvalds, former "Candid" speaker

Re: Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

#28

Post by loeg »

happytoexplain wrote: post #7
mikece wrote: post #3

I absolutely love that Linus speaks his mind. Candor and telling it honestly is getting rarer...

Unfortunately, "candor and telling it honestly" is frequently code for "I want to be hostile toward people I don't like, but I don't want to experience social consequences for it", so there's a lot of noise in the interpretation of this space.

I agree it's often a problem. Happily, in this instance, Linus's criticisms are on the mark and not directed at an individual.

Re: Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

#29

Post by thinkmassive »

ahelwer wrote: post #6
spicybright wrote: post #5

While I don't think he should be flipping the bird, his technical arguments are absolutely spot on. An aside question for readers: How often does RAM error, and is it a significant problem in practice? I don't have any direct experience with this (that I could tell) using consumer computers for the past 15-odd years of programming.

That photo is from him saying "fuck you" to NVIDIA back in 2012: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/linus... FTA: "Bit flips can happen for many reasons, beginning with cosmic-ray impact or simple hardware failure. A large-scale study[0] of Google servers found that roughly 32 percent of all servers (and 8 percent of all DIMMs) in Google's fleet experience at least one memory error per year. But t…

Also FTA: "ECC RAM ... can generally stop Rowhammer attacks—in which rapidly flipping bits in one area of RAM cause bits in an adjacent area to change."

Re: Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus

#30

Post by karmakaze »

mywittyname wrote: post #16

The market killed ECC for consumers. It used to be widely available to desktop class hardware (I used to have some), but it was slower and more expensive than non-ECC RAM. None of the marketing-types made a good case for why normal people should pay more money for less-performant hardware, so the market disappeared. Even the security issues only meaningfully impact servers. People like Linus can buy server-class hard…

The 'market' was influenced by two things. 1. Intel using ECC to segment consumer/server offerings. 2. Even when AMD supported ECC (officially or unofficially) on consumer products, consumers voted with their wallets with a mix of ignorance.

ECC ram should be more expensive as you're paying for more bits, and marginally slower as you're comparing stored with computed. If consumers don't value their data (they say they do but don't act accordingly), bit errors is what we get.

I do my job on a company laptop, if it were my own company I'd use an AMD desktop with ECC.

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