When Microsoft demanded that PCs putting in or upgrading to Home windows 11 required a CPU that supported TPM 2.0, some individuals (together with myself) made the bounce to Linux to maintain our older programs ticking over.
As such, you could really feel a bit little bit of worry once you hear that Linux is adopting a CPU requirement that Microsoft has enforced with Home windows for some time now. Nicely, the excellent news is, it isn’t TPM 2.0; the excellent information is, in the event you’re utilizing a tool that may learn this text, there’s a particularly good likelihood your CPU already meets it.
Linux will now demand that CPUs work with the Time Stamp Counter
If you could ask what that’s, there is a good likelihood your CPU already has it
As noticed by Neowin, the most recent Linux kernel, 7.2, has formally been launched. Amongst all of the listed modifications is this commit:
x86/cpu: Make CONFIG_X86_TSC unconditional
I.e. it is a boot time requirement for the CPU to assist it. This solely removes the Kconfig glue, removing of all now lifeless !X86_TSC code will occur in a separate patch.
Basically, Linux 7.2 now requires that x86 CPUs are suitable with the Time Stamp Counter (TSC) earlier than it boots. If it does not assist TSC, the kernel will refuse in addition.
So, is that this Linux’s massive “Home windows 11’s force-upgrade second”? Nicely, no. In contrast to TPM 2.0, TSC has been round for a very very long time; since 1993, in actual fact. So, in case your processor was made this aspect of Intel releasing the first-ever Pentium processors, you are golden. There is no want to fret about it.
The explanation for this variation is probably going all the way down to Linux’s latest removing of assist for very, very previous processors. The earlier kernel model, Linux 7.1, stopped support for the i486, so it appears that evidently capping processors at TSC compatibility is a clear and simple strategy to set a cut-off level for legacy assist.
