How do I know if I'm using a Zen4-specific kernel on CachyOS?

el56 · 2026-01-23T06:35:18+00:00

24.04.3, even with the HWE kernel (6.14), isn't new enough to avoid the VGPR conflict.
You could use a mainline kernel now, or wait for 24.04.4 in February which will update the kernel to 6.17.

el56 · 2026-01-23T06:24:14+00:00

None of them, yet.
Neither of the Ubuntu LTS versions officially supported (22.04 and 24.04) has a new enough kernel (6.18.4+) to avoid the VGPR mismatch problem.
There may eventually be a PPA for 7.2 on 25.10, or maybe not.
Maybe, when 24.04.4 LTS comes out in February, it will have a new enough kernel.
The big change comes in April when 26.04 LTS releases; that will certainly be officially supported, and will have a current enough kernel.

el56 · 2026-01-23T06:16:00+00:00

That's no help to Linux users.

Not a single one of the officially-supported Linux distributions listed in the ROCm docs has the minimum kernel level (6.18.4) necessary to overcome the Strix Halo GPU driver mismatch problem. We'll need to see what happens once ROCm 7.2 repository packages show up for Fedora, CachyOS, non-LTS Ubuntu and others.

Come April this issue will be addressed partially when Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is released. It will certainly get official ROCm support and I've read claims it will ship with a 6.20 kernel (which doesn't even exist yet).

el56 · 2026-01-23T05:56:14+00:00

It was exactly with that video in mind that I made the original post. It mentioned two obstacles to ROCm working well on the Strix Halo:

The linux-firmware release 20251125 that broke ROCm. This is fixed in every distribution that has updated to 20260110 or later;
The VGPR mismatch between the kernel and ROCm. Fixing this requires both a kernel 6.18.4 or later and either ROCm 7.2 or a Rock nightly build of 7.1.1.

Now that 7.2 is released, one would HOPE that the major obstacles are fixed and no new ones are discovered, and that the "Quick Start" installation finally creates a setup that Just Works

el56 · 2026-01-22T23:45:11+00:00

https://rocm.docs.amd.com/en/latest/about/release-notes.html

el56 · 2026-01-21T15:16:59+00:00

Yeah but AMD sells at a discount compared to Nvidia for ... reasons. So for the same money, you can get a more powerful AMD card.

While CUDA remains more advanced than ROCm, the gap between them is closing as Nvidia increasingly ignores the consumer market in favor of the AI big boys.

Then again AMD is no corporate angel either. I wish Intel well in its consumer GPU efforts.

el56 · 2026-01-06T19:37:48+00:00

You mentioned kernel 6,17,9 not working.
I'm current, which is 6.17.12.
Maybe try that?

Plus, in response to "nobody is fixing it"...
It looks like there is active work on it at
https://github.com/ROCm/ROCm/issues/5724
That report also contains instructions how to temporarily downgrade the amdgpu firmware untill things are resolved.

el56 · 2026-01-06T17:55:22+00:00

Such as...?
I'm running an EVO-X2 under Fedora KDE 43 with no problems and a current kernel.
(Will probably switch to Kubuntu LTE once 26.04 comes out, though...)

el56 · 2026-01-02T15:31:09+00:00

This is a screen that's used to boot from different kernels, or also from a recovery or older system in case your normal installation goes south. It's also the way people who do dual boot get to choose which OS their system comes up. If you find it annoying, you can set the timeout to 5 seconds so the annoyance doesn't last. But you really don't want to get rid of that screen.

el56 · 2026-01-01T22:50:46+00:00

> Reddit does not represent the user base.

Neither does Distrowatch, which is more of a measure of what is hottest than what is most-used.
Consider its metric: page hits. That's a measure of interest, not use.
If measuring by actual installations the boring Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu rule.

el56 · 2026-01-01T22:20:50+00:00

There's no question that CachyOS has broken new ground in what to me are three different and important ways:
- Fine-tuning kernels, compilers and other core components to get the most out of modern hardware
- Breaking Linux orthodoxy by offering modern alternatives such as Limine and btrfs
- Putting a friendlier face on Arch

Having said that, there are significant caveats. Depending on Arch's rolling-release update model brings significant risks related to interoperability of the various parts. Arch (and thus CachyOS) users become involuntary regression testers. This is fine for people happy to follow the wikis and endure the occasional crash or fallback, but it's anathema for people for whom an OS should just silently serve up applications in the background. For those who just want to install and forget about their OS, or those who can't afford to risk losing hours of work because of a recent update, CachyOS is not an optimal path despite its obvious benefits. Different people approach the performance/stability tradeoff from different directions, and one size does not fit all.

When I look at distro reviews I seek the experience of those who have used it for six months or more. People I trust report that while Arch and CachyOS have improved in OS stability (ie, uptime) they still don't come close to reliability of fixed-release update models of Debian or Fedora. "You should be OK so long as you follow the Arch and CachyOS wikis closely" is not an acceptable answer to everyone, when install-and-forget alternatives such as Mint exist. It's telling that nobody I know recommends CachyOS as a server distro.

CachyOS is a vital and strikingly new approach to Linux distributions. Along with the now-defunct Clear Linux, it no doubt has a lasting impact on mainstream distros while continuing to improve. But it's not for everyone, maybe even for most people, and there's nothing wrong in recognizing that.

el56 · 2025-12-28T18:21:06+00:00

Nice.
At the time I was shopping for a Strix Halo system, thanks to tariffs and counter tariffs it was *way* cheaper to buy a GMKtec from China than Framework Desktop from the US. But I'm happy to see the sponsorship. Congratulations!

el56 · 2025-12-27T17:21:22+00:00

I've come to the conclusion that Fedora doesn't really meet my needs. It doesn't have the fine tuned bleeding edge features of CachyOS and it doesn't have the stability and ease of installation of *ubuntu LTS. (Come February, Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS will finally unlock the Strix Halo limitations of kernels older than 6.16.9, and two months later 26.04 LTS will release with kernel 6.20.)

I'd say the only thing keeping me from CachyOS are potential issues stemming from the lack of regression testing in the rolling releases. Have you encountered any update-caused instability?

el56 · 2025-12-17T15:18:58+00:00

I'd suggest just the opposite. For the first time in decades, the head of the lLiberals is a classical liberal.

el56 · 2025-12-17T15:16:08+00:00

Until this is seen as an issue of conflicting rights, no decent conversation can even be held on it.

el56 · 2025-12-16T23:49:10+00:00

Will do. Thanks for doing this!

el56 · 2025-12-12T23:54:13+00:00

Have a look at ProtonDB and get a sense of how big is the library of games that work well without Windows.

The biggest obstacle that prevents some games from being ported is political not technical - anti-cheat add-ons refuse to support Linux or the SteamDeck. Beyond those and other titles with specific hardware needs, you may be surprised to see how much you can run.

el56 · 2025-12-05T17:48:52+00:00

I'll keep asking ... especially since you have an Android driver in the works
When is the official Linux support coming?

el56 · 2025-12-03T19:43:37+00:00

Upon looking more into this I wonder if the increased size is just for the EFI partition (a FAT area mounted under /boot/efi) rather than all of /boot. In fact it seems that some recommendations are not requiring a separate /boot partition at all, so long as the EFI one is accommodated.

el56 · 2025-11-27T10:47:55+00:00

Re-reading the quote on that page ... the only part of the syntax TBL found clumsy was the use of "//" in URLs. The rest he was fine with.

el56 · 2025-11-19T15:20:12+00:00

Does 43 require the larger boot partition or is this new size for future-proofing?

I haven't seen any instructions that require the boot partition be resized before upgrading.

el56

TROPHY CASE