Speed Up Linux

I'm seeing big performance increases by adding a single option to the kernel for desktop users. .

[ChrisTitusTech]

Note: Even after I removed my mitigations, these tests failed on the AMD Ryzen 5600X. I've never seen Meltdown or Spectre exploited with much success in the wild, just proof of concept projects. I stand by my recommendation that these mitigations should be disable on desktops as the security risk is minimal, but is still there.

[timidgoldfish]

Unless you really know what you're doing, this is just really bad advice for most people. People run untrusted binaries all the time on their personal computer. Besides, on Linux, the line can easily blur between a desktop and a server. Many people have SSH servers running, game servers, chat servers, etc, and some don't even have proper firewall set up. Turning off mitigations is a bad idea unless you really need that few percent increase in performance, or you have an air-gapped system or something.

[Anonymous]

It's nice to see the entire linux community completely united at this: this is an awful idea

[ChimeraX]

Never turn off those mitigations, those things are in place to protect you against attacks. Those exploits like spectre and meltdown can likely be exploited by a simple JavaScript. This is really dangerous so as much as possible never do this. Valve also didnt do this because they know better, they dont want to be in a scandal about security of their device....

[mananabanana]

The comments section saved me from this disaster of a suggestion. Chris you should make an explainer for your thinking behind this.

[adamsavard]

Disabling mitigation, as others have voiced, should ONLY be done if you know exactly what you're signing up for. Yes, odds are you're not going to get attacked in the wild; the average user probably will not once get a virus or something, _especially_ on Linux. But if you have a server, or run _any_ services through your desktop (like plex, as an example), DO NOT touch these options.

This is good information to have; everyone should be able to do what they want with their own hardware. But to the rando that's reading through the comments thinking this is fantastic, bullet proof advice: it isn't. This is a great thing if you _only_ game, but if you do other things, please don't do this.

[YvanDaSilva]

Please only do this if you know exactly what you are running in your devices and you know what services you visit (including websites).
Those mitigations are NOT only for VM users...

[ionut-cristianratoi]

I really doubt that this is a good idea. As others have said, the mitigations contains fixes for vulnerabilities, including Meltdown and Spectre. Furthermore, it will not use mitigations on vulnerabilities that are not present for that given CPU.
The video should do a better job at explaining what exactly people are doing here, without blindly encouraging them to disable vital kernel vulnerabilities fixes.

PS: I'm not an Linux expert, but if you do a quick google search regarding this you will overwhelmingly find that this is a bad idea for various reasons.

[GebaseerdeKikker]

Don't do this. Don't disable mitigations. You are at risk if you do this, for example by malicious JavaScript.

[ray_jay]

Recommendations I never hear of, but certainly make your system faster and more secure, are disabling unused or unneeded systemd services (most of them listening on ports) and blacklisting unused modules. Definitely keep mitigations enabled, malicious javascript can exploit those vulnerabilities. The biggest performance drop comes from disabling hyperthreading with noht or nosmt, mitigations=full doesn't disable hyperthreading.

[shanent]

He forgot to mention Step 0: unplug your network cable and any WI-FI antennae

[linuxsbc]

Don't turn off mitigations. Spectre and Meltdown are still a huge issue even for desktop users.

[roccociccone]

I usually like your videos Chris, but for this one I don’t really agree. Unless the system is extremely slow with the mitigations in place, or the extra few percent really matter I wouldn’t recommend turning off these mitigations. Especially for new users.

[jalexmatey]

We shouldn't be advertising lowering security to increase performance, at all. There is a reason they are on by default and, to be frank, the ability to change those is worrying. I don't care if you are a techy or not, you wouldn't leave your car unlocked in a safe neighbourhood because no crime has been reported.

[Cylaps]

Linux community:

Few random commands gives up to 30% speedup.
Gentoo (optimization and configuration for every program and kernel) gives 2% speedup

[bstar]

In my testing on a 16 core Threadripper, I only got 2% improvement. Definitely not worth the security risk it adds.

[MTBiSLiVE]

On my machine (i5-12600K (6+4 efficiency cores, 16 threads), 32GB of 3600MHz DDR4 RAM) I got a single core increase of 1.8% and multicore of 0.6%.
Definitely not worth all the security risks that come along with disabling mitigations.

If anyone reading this hasn't read any of the other comments, DO NOT DO THIS! Unless you REALLY know what you're doing, this is a huge security risk and not worth the performance gain, not even if it would be 30%!

[RifterDask]

I’d be nervous about this on anything other than a pure gaming machine. Even then, I would avoid certain older multiplayer titles.

If you’re not gonna be doing any web browsing at all? Probably okay, just stay away from games with custom user-built servers and web integration.

[amananwar]

never in my life i thought that i was ever going to speed up linux

[itzamedave]

Great to see you doing more Linux content always a learning experience 🙏