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Does Linux Arch 3.1 support Intel Optane? I have booted kernel 3.1 on SATA. Is there Intel Optane on SATA? Or does Linux 3.1 support any other Optane interface?

EDIT

It is Arch based Audiophile Linux 3.1:

uname -a

Linux server1 3.10.14-rt9-1-rt #1 SMP PREEMPT RT Wed Oct 9 ... 2013 x86_64

The version 4.0 had a problem in my system. I did not try 5.0.

Hiroyashu
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    @0andriy [Arch Linux](https://www.archlinux.org/) is a rolling-release distro; it doesn't have distro release version numbers. (Except for the installer / live-CD, which has version numbers like 2020.01.01, i.e. just the date). Your edit is making an almost-certainly wrong assumption about what the OP meant. (NVM, I see you already rolled it back.) – Peter Cordes Jan 30 '20 at 15:02
  • @PeterCordes What edit? :-) Read an updated comment to your answer. – 0andriy Jan 30 '20 at 15:04
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about programming. It would be better suited on https://unix.stackexchange.com/ – Dharman Jan 30 '20 at 23:45

1 Answers1

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That distro snapshot is from 2015. Using it in 2020 (especially on a network) seem like a terrible idea from a security POV! It's not like RedHat or something where they backport security fixes to old versions of kernel and user-space, this snapshot of Arch GNU/Linux simply hasn't been maintained since then.

"Linux 3.1" is highly misleading terminology. You're talking about a distro release version, so you need to say "Audiophile Linux 3.1". If you just say Linux x.y, that's assumed to be a kernel version number. Linux is the name of the kernel itself.

AFAIK, only Optane DC PM needs any special support (for mmap(MAP_SYNC) since Linux (kernel version) 4.15), and maybe for talking to the NV-DIMM itself.

Other Optane devices (Optane DC and consumer-grade Optane) are just fast SSDs that use standard protocols, typically NVMe.

Some of the stuff that Intel associates with Optane like using Optane as a cacheing drive to accelerate a rotational HDD or to "augment your DRAM" is purely (Windows) software that's locked to using certain Intel HW. e.g. Confused about Intel Optane DC SSD usage as extra RAM with IMDT? explains that IMDT is just Intel software to use an Optane DC SSD as swap space.

SATA is too slow for most of the benefit. A quick google didn't find any Optane SATA devices; not really surprising. It's unlikely that Intel sells any SATA-connected Optane drives based on 3DXpoint memory.

Linux kernel version 3.10 supports NVMe; support was added in Linux 3.3. (Assuming this distro built its kernel with NVMe enabled.)

A kernel as old as 3.10 might have problems with other hardware on a new motherboard. (Including but maybe not limited to integrated graphics.)

If your realtime latency requirements are very low, you might want to look into NV-DIMM, or just a RAM disk (which you copy into at startup) for data that needs to be ready with low latency, to make sure reading never has to wait for disk latency at all.

If not, you can probably use a modern distro that's still maintained, with a low-latency kernel.

Or mmap files and pin them into memory with mlock to make sure they stay ready. (Doesn't solve the initial-read latency, but allows guaranteed low latency access for files once you've done that. And doesn't need expensive storage. A high-capacity TLC or QLC NVMe SSD could be fine, especially if you look for one that doesn't ever block for long periods of time under read-only workloads. Use noatime to prevent writes.)

Peter Cordes
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  • It is a low-latency real-time kernel digital music server. I want to reduce latency more with Optane. Is it hard to backport NVMe drivers? I know Linux. but not an expert. I upvoted, it says recorded, but not displayed until 15 reputation. – Hiroyashu Jan 30 '20 at 08:28
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    @Hiroyashu: IDK, probably. It's probably easier to just use a newer kernel. Are you sure you have realtime requirements that Optane is fast enough for, but other NVMe drives are not? Or even a good SATA SSD? Some review sites measure average and 99% percentile latency under various workloads. If your expected workload is read-only, most drives are fine with that. – Peter Cordes Jan 30 '20 at 08:37
  • It is read only, but latency consistency is important. Common SSDs interrupt randomly to save the map and it is inconsistent. I use Intel S3710 that keeps the map in RAM on the disk. I just want to see if Optane is better. – Hiroyashu Jan 30 '20 at 08:47
  • I guess the **3.1** is a **distro** version rather than kernel. There is no distro based on Linux v3.1 kernel. – 0andriy Jan 30 '20 at 14:49
  • @0andriy: I've heard of some embedded boards shipping SDKs based on very outdated Linux kernels. Without more details, I was assuming that's what the OP had. But distro version is a viable theory, too. (I'm sure some old version of some distro used Linux 3.1, but yeah probably no current distro) – Peter Cordes Jan 30 '20 at 14:51
  • Believe me, there is none based on such Linux kernel release. I fixed question text. And rolled back... :-( Text is quite ambiguous since Arch Linux never had versions. – 0andriy Jan 30 '20 at 14:52
  • @0andriy I added the kernel version to the question. – Hiroyashu Jan 30 '20 at 19:00
  • NVMe support was first added in v3.3 kernel, so this v3.10 kernel could have support. But v3.10 is quite old and I doubt anyone has used Optane with that kernel, which predates Optane by about four years. – TrentP Jan 30 '20 at 23:46
  • @TrentP: Thanks. The question originally said "Linux 3.1" but apparently that was the version of some old specialized distro, not the kernel. – Peter Cordes Jan 31 '20 at 01:24
  • @PeterCordes The uname -a command show the kernel version 3.10, not the distro version. Also, this machine is not on a network, so security is not an issue. Thank you for the answer! – Hiroyashu Jan 31 '20 at 07:49
  • @TrentP, Linux kernel v3.10 is LTS and IIRC RHEL 7 (!) is using it. https://access.redhat.com/articles/3078 – 0andriy Jan 31 '20 at 16:55
  • Peter, btw, please don't confuse people more, use *Linux kernel vX.Y.Z* instead of what you wrote in the answer. – 0andriy Jan 31 '20 at 17:00
  • His kernel is 3.10.14, released Oct 1 2013. Optane SSDs were released in 2017. RHEL 7 still uses 3.10.0, but RHEL7 has ended full support Aug 2019. It's still in maintenance though. The 3.10.y series went EOL with 3.10.108 on Nov 4 2017. NVMe was really new in the 3.10.y series and that kernel also pre-dates Optane by four years. It could work, but it wouldn't surprise me if it didn't. There's been work on latency reduction since 3.10. Newer kernel might be better. – TrentP Jan 31 '20 at 20:03