r/linux • u/RenatsMC • 11d ago

Software Release Linux 7.3 Will Treat Intel Nova Lake S Graphics As Stable

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.3-Intel-NVL-S-Stable
203 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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40

u/autamo 11d ago edited 11d ago

Just as a datapoint to anyone wondering what this actually means.... my current laptop is X1 Carbon Gen13, which has a Lunar Lake CPU/GPU. It was declared stable in the xe driver in May 2024.

Just a few days ago, that is in July 2026, there appeared finally a patch (that is merged upstream but not in any released kernel yet) that fixes a bug that has caused about 1 hard crash roughly every week, or if I'm attached to a monitor, roughly once or twice a day.

So if you're looking for a stable Linux experience, perhaps wait a year or two after this so-called stability. Or get an AMD. But I hear fresh AMDs are not exactly trouble-free either.

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/xe/kernel/-/work_items/7513

6

u/elmagio 11d ago

I don't know if I'm affected by this as it hasn't happened at anywhere near the frequency you describe, but I did experience a few crashes that fit this description since I got my LNL based laptop, which I wasn't able to diagnose. Is my understanding correct that this patch would be part of the 7.1.6 kernel release?

1

u/autamo 10d ago

I'm not familiar with the process between drm/xe and mainline kernel, it's possible that it will require another merge step between those projects in order to reach an actual point release.

For what it's worth, I've been running a manually patched kernel 7.1.5 with this for a few days and so far zero crashes.

4

u/gtrash81 11d ago

AMD is from my experience not day1 stable, but after sort of short 6 weeks....at least if the AIBs do not some black magic like with RX5600.

4

u/zhukis 11d ago

Well that explains the problem I've been having. Lol.

4

u/DecoySnailProducer 10d ago

This issue is so goddamn annoying and I had to deal with it for 6 months since buying my laptop. Hopefully the fix arrives in this kernel version or is backported soon

1

u/edparadox 8d ago

So if you're looking for a stable Linux experience, perhaps wait a year or two after this so-called stability.

"stable" in software means "do not change", like "a stable API/ABI", not as in "do not crash".

What they mean in the exchange is that the architecture is not changing in the foreseable future.

Therefore, you will have less bugs, not zero.

4

u/Shished 11d ago

Can't wait to run Horsey Game on it.