Introducing architecture variants: amd64v3 now available in Ubuntu 25.10

Ubuntu prides itself on being among the most compatible Linux distributions. Compatibility is often a conscious trade-off against bleeding-edge performance. In Ubuntu 25.10, we have added support for packages that target specific silicon variants, meaning you can have your cake and eat it too! Back in 2023 I wrote an article talking about the history of the amd64/x86-64 architecture and described the “levels” x86-64-v2, -v3, and -v4 (often referred to as amd64v3, amd64v4, etc.). Since then, we’...