
Linux Hardware Reviews, Performance Benchmarks & Open-Source / Free Software News
Updated: 2 hours 57 min ago
Linux 5.18 Unifying Two More Portions Of AMD & Intel Code
Thanks to the nature of open-source and independently-controlled projects like the Linux kernel, there is already much code sharing among competitive hardware vendors in areas where applicable. Much of the Linux kernel's x86/x86_64 code is shared between AMD and Intel (and VIA, Centaur, and Hygon for that matter) where relevant while due to different supported features and implementation differences there is divergence at times. With Linux 5.18 there are two features currently with unique AMD and Intel code paths that are working towards more unification...
Intel Hardware Feedback Interface "HFI" Driver Submitted For Linux 5.18
As expected, the thermal subsystem updates for the in-development Linux 5.18 kernel is bringing the new Hardware Feedback Interface (HFI) for benefiting their hybrid architecture processors as introduced recently with Alder Lake...
Samba 4.16 Released For Improving Windows File/Print Server Interoperability
Samba 4.16 is out as the newest feature release for this leading SMB / CIFS implementation for improving Windows file/print interoperability with Linux-based systems...
AMD EPYC 7773X "Milan-X" Benchmarks Show Very Strong HPC Performance Upgrade
While Milan-X was announced back in November, today is the day of the Milan-X embargo lift for reviewing these new processors and sharing more about these high-end server processors focused on delivering even greater performance for high performance computing (HPC) workloads. In this review is a look at the performance of the AMD EPYC 7773X series against other AMD EPYC parts and the Intel Xeon Scalable competition under Linux.
AMD Milan-X Upgrade In The Cloud Makes Microsoft Azure HBv3 Very Compelling For HPC
Today the AMD EPYC 7003 Milan-X processors are officially shipping. See my AMD EPYC 7773X Linux review for more details and plenty of benchmarks. The 768MB of L3 cache per CPU won't be of benefit to all workloads, just as the forthcoming Ryzen 7 5800X3D is focused on gaming. Aside from the dozens of benchmarks covered in my review, if you are still left wondering about whether other workloads stand to benefit from Milan-X, thankfully it's easy to already test drive it in the cloud with Microsoft Azure. Here are some Microsoft Azure HBv3 benchmarks looking at the Milan-X uplift in the cloud.
Intel Adds A Tiny OpenCL Compiler To Mesa 22.1 For Their Vulkan Ray-Tracing Code
Intel has added a little OpenCL C compiler binary to Mesa 22.1 today in the latest development code-base...
Linux 5.18 Scheduler Updates Improve NUMA Balancing For AMD EPYC Servers
Ingo Molnar has begun sending out the pull requests for the code he oversees in the kernel for the newly-opened Linux 5.18 merge window. The scheduler updates this cycle are rather notable especially for AMD Linux server users...
TornadoVM 0.13 Released For Java OpenJDK/GraalVM Offloading To GPUs, FPGAs & More
TornadoVM continues advancing as the open-source plug-in to OpenJDK and GraalVM that allows Java programs to run on heterogeneous hardware from GPUs to FPGAs and other targets...
Mesa's CPU-Based Software Vulkan Driver Now Exposes Vulkan 1.3
The recent work by Mike Blumenkrantz on getting Lavapipe to advertise Vulkan 1.3 has successfully landed within Mesa 22.1...
FSCRYPT Adding Direct I/O Support For Encrypted Files In Linux 5.18
It's been a while since having any shiny new features to talk about for FSCRYPT, the Linux kernel's file-system encryption framework that is used by the likes of EXT4 and F2FS. With Linux 5.18 that changes with FSCRYPT adding direct I/O support...
Newer ASUS Motherboards To See Improved Sensor Handling With Linux 5.18
Following yesterday's Linux 5.17 release, HWMON subsystem maintainer Guenter Roeck was quick to send in the feature updates for the hardware monitoring subsystem for Linux 5.18...
Linux 5.17 Released With AMD P-State Driver, Plenty Of New Hardware Support
Following the one week delay to the release schedule, Linus Torvalds issued the Linux 5.17 stable release a short time ago...
AMD Publishes New Instinct MI200 Instruction Set Documentation
AMD quietly posted a new version of its instruction set architecture documentation concerning its Instinct MI200 accelerator. AMD originally published the ISA documentation for the MI200 back in November but it seems to have gone unnoticed (including by me) while in February they went ahead and released a new version of that technical documentation...
Linux Mint Debian Edition 5 Released - Built Atop Debian 11
The Linux Mint crew have today released Linux Mint Debian Edition 5 (LMDE5). This is the effort carried out as a safeguard should Linux Mint in the future determine it unsuitable to continue basing their flagship distribution atop Ubuntu...
Many NVMe Updates & Other Block Changes For Linux 5.18
In addition to the IO_uring updates for Linux 5.18, block subsystem maintainer Jens Axboe has also submitted the core block and driver changes ahead of the v5.18 merge window opening tonight following the release of Linux 5.17...
Updated AMD GPU Firmware Blobs Land In Linux-Firmware.Git For PSP 13.0.8, GC 10.3.7
AMD's Radeon Linux graphics driver developers remain very busy working on their upcoming GPU support...
Microsoft Enables SELinux By Default For CBL-Mariner Linux Distro
It was just last week Microsoft issued a new monthly update to CBL-Mariner, its Linux distribution within use at the Windows company for tasks ranging from Azure to WSL. Now a second update for March has arrived for CBL-Mariner with security fixes and a few other updates...
Fish 3.4 Shell Released With Faster Globbing, Improved Command Substitution Syntax
Fish 3.4 is out as the newest version of this popular shell particularly among enthusiasts/hobbyists...
IO_uring Gets New Features & Speed-Ups With Linux 5.18
The Linux 5.17 kernel will be released tomorrow and in turn that will kickoff the start of the Linux 5.18 merge window. Linux block subsystem maintainer Jens Axboe has already begun submitting his feature pull requests for this next kernel, including the IO_uring updates...
Sound Open Firmware 2.1-rc1 Released
The Intel-led Sound Open Firmware project for providing open-source firmware for newer Intel audio hardware and even support for some AMD audio hardware is nearing its v2.1 release...