El9 will require x86-64-v2 support

Rocky Linux General
1

This won’t apply to us Rocky folks for a while but it’s a useful bit of information for forward planning.

el9 will require your AMD or Intel 64 bit cpu to support a minimum of x86-64-v2.

Here is a script to find out what you’ve got.

#!/usr/bin/awk -f
 
BEGIN { 
    while (!/flags/) if (getline < "/proc/cpuinfo" != 1) exit 1
    if (/lm/&&/cmov/&&/cx8/&&/fpu/&&/fxsr/&&/mmx/&&/syscall/&&/sse2/) level = 1
    if (level == 1 && /cx16/&&/lahf/&&/popcnt/&&/sse4_1/&&/sse4_2/&&/ssse3/) level = 2  
    if (level == 2 && /avx/&&/avx2/&&/bmi1/&&/bmi2/&&/f16c/&&/fma/&&/abm/&&/movbe/&&/xsave/) level = 3
    if (level == 3 && /avx512f/&&/avx512bw/&&/avx512cd/&&/avx512dq/&&/avx512vl/) level = 4
    if (level > 0) { print "CPU supports x86-64-v" level; exit level + 1 }
    exit 1
}
2 Likes
2

On the CentOS mailing list, someone posted the following command whose output includes the info of interest:

/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 --help

1 Like
3

Hmm “recommends” and “optional” make it sound not “required” but in any event, the Wikipedia article on X86-64 says v2 goes back to 2009’s Nehalem microarchitecture.

4

My AMD motherboards don’t last long enough for this optional architecture to be a restriction.

5

/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 --help says on Westmere EP Xeon (released Q1 2010):

Subdirectories of glibc-hwcaps directories, in priority order:
  x86-64-v4
  x86-64-v3
  x86-64-v2 (supported, searched)

Legacy HWCAP subdirectories under library search path directories:
  x86_64 (AT_PLATFORM; supported, searched)
  tls (supported, searched)
  avx512_1
  x86_64 (supported, searched)
1 Like
6

I get the same values on a Core i5 750 (“Lynnfield”) from Q3 2009.

Heh, this not-a-server is now 12 years old. But it’s still working well enough :slight_smile:

7

OK I don’t do much scripting. Do I simply past the above script into the CLI and hit enter?? If not how do I run that script?? Sorry for the dumb question.

8

That is clearly content of a file. The first line contains #!/usr/bin/awk -f
The script is written for AWK.

Say you save that text into file named ‘support_level’ and give it executable permissions:
chmod +x support_level
Then you should be able to run it with: ./support_level
When you do that the shell looks at the #! line and will run /usr/bin/awk -f support_level for you.

Without executable permission it is still possible to run the script with:
awk -f support_level

You will get bit different output, if you run:
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 --help

9

note: this works only with RHEL 8 and newer, it does not work with RHEL 7, use the above awk script in that case.

1 Like
10

Indeed:

[CentOS 7]$ /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 --help
--help: error while loading shared libraries: --help: cannot open shared object file

… and that was not the difference that I had in mind. :flushed:

It depends on version of ‘glibc’ and is not specific to RHEL. For example, recent Ubuntu has this “new, fancy glibc” while “quite recent Ubuntu” doesn’t.

11

Hehehehe Thanks. I’m more interested in this to see if ocelot will be able to run RL 9.x, or any other OS that might demand x86-64-v2 support. In this case the “other OS” would be the next reiteration of openSUSE. I would suspect ocelot with its AMD Ryzen 9 5900x CPU and its ASUS Prime X-570 Pro motherboard should be up to the task. That said I would suspect leopard which is currently some 6-8 years old, and currently running CentOS 7.9 will NOT.

12

And if that script reports:

CPU supports x86-64-v1

Then I’m dead in the water…

13

No, not yet. By 2029.

14

Well, I guess, that’ll make for a lot of miles out of a fairly old (2007) touch-screen lappy converted into a lil’ol kiosk/ home server :slight_smile:
Lets hope it’s got another 7 years left in it.

15

Ran into this yesterday. Didn’t know why I got a kernel panic and jlehtone pointed me to the RH article. It’s a 2007 P35-DS3R from Gigabyte. (This was on alma forums, but searching around for a script to check it, I came across this thread).
Once again even though it was on another forum, thanks to to jlehtone for saving me searching for the answer. That machine can continue with alma 8.6 for now, but will have to be changed to run Alma/Rocky or whatever 9.

16

Hiya @scottro !

Are you going to write a note about this on your site? If so, give me a link, please. :slightly_smiling_face:

17

Tora cat senpai! Yes, I have this and other info about packages that I use, and the srpms I used to build them at RHEL9 and clones. I included the script provided by Frank Cox, giving him credit of course. Now I’m debating building a new box, but as (so far) RHEL9 and clones are the only ones that can’t use it, so I’ll probably wait.

18

Wow, that’s a lot of reading.

19

Most of it only relevant if you want some of the non-repo packages that I do.

20

I just redid the page, hopefully making it easier to read.