Phoronix

Linux 5.16-rc1 is coming out later today and already I'm seeing some fallout in the new kernel's performance... In particular, bad news for Alder Lake that is already seeing the Linux performance trailing Windows 11 seemingly due to the lack of Thread Director integration right now in the kernel and any other missing optimizations around Intel's hybrid architecture. A new feature of Linux 5.16 is unfortunately having unintended regressions for Alder Lake with at least the flagship Core i9 12900K. Here are the results from the latest kernel bisecting that uncovered this latest upstream slowdown.

Intel, Amazon AWS, IBM, Qualcomm, and UIUC researchers have been collaborating over a proposed "Tensor LLVM Extensions" (TLX) to make this open-source compiler infrastructure more suitable for targeting AI accelerators and other emerging classes of hardware...

While not coming as part of the new 5.16 cycle, one of the exciting patch series to come about this year has been Google's work on the Multigenerational LRU (MGLRU) Framework for improving performance around the kernel's page reclaim handling...

This week marked the release of QEMU 6.2-rc0 as the first test candidate for this upcoming update that plays an important role in the open-source Linux virtualization stack...

Mesa's open-source "Turnip" driver that provides Vulkan support for Qualcomm Adreno graphics hardware and complementary to the Freedreno Gallium3D driver can now handle Vulkan 1.2...

While Zstd is used in various areas of the Linux kernel for data compression from transparent file-system compression with the likes of Btrfs to allowing kernel modules be compressed with this Zstandard algorithm, the in-kernel code had fallen years outdated. Finally with Linux 5.16 that Zstd in-kernel implementation is now being brought up to modern standards and delivering better performance too...

Another batch of SMB3/CIFS client changes were submitted and merged today for the Linux 5.16 merge window. Plus the KSMBD changes were also merged today for that in-kernel SMB3 file server...

Merged at the start of the Linux 5.16 cycle was the long in development memory "folios" code. That initial pull had the changes to the kernel page cache and memory management code while now before ending out the merge window is converting some file-system code to using folios...

DXVK-NVAPI as the project providing NVIDIA driver API integration "NVAPI" around DXVK/VKD3D-Proton is out with a new feature release...

Last week was the main set of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) changes for Linux 5.16 that introduced RISC-V hypervisor support and AMD PSF control bit support, among other changes. A second set of KVM changes were sent out on Friday that is headlined by having AMD SEV/SEV-ES intra-host migration support...

The RISC-V architecture updates were sent out on Friday for targeting the nearly-over Linux 5.16 merge window...

Like clockwork KDE developer Nate Graham is out with his weekly development summary each Saturday highlighting the accomplishments of this free software desktop project...

Valve today hosted the much anticipated Steam Deck Development Livestream where they and their partners at AMD talked more about the forthcoming Steam Deck's hardware and software...

When writing this morning about intel "Raptor Lake" Linux enablement to begin, I didn't expect that to bear fruit so quickly in just a matter of hours... As predicted, that Linux bring-up for the Alder Lake successor is beginning now -- and doing so at full-speed with the initial Raptor Lake S (RPL-S) graphics support being posted...

AMD this week quietly released Radeon Software for Linux 21.40.1 as a fundamentally big update for this packaged driver stack targeting enterprise Linux distributions...

Following Mesa's Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan translation driver finally running "glxgears" in a correct and performant manner, the newest milestone acheived by lead Zink developer Mike Blumenkrantz is managing to run Wayland's Weston compositor...

Following today's inaugural patch, over the coming weeks we are expected to see Intel Raptor Lake patches beginning to make it out onto the public kernel mailing list for review...

While we are used to running AMD and Intel benchmarks between Microsoft Windows and Linux while most often finding that our favorite open-source operating systems normally lead the race from desktops through HEDT and server platforms, when it comes to the Core i9 12900K "Alder Lake" that is currently not the case. Going into this round of Windows vs. Linux testing quite curious given some Intel hybrid architecture oddities we have been seeing under Linux, indeed when hitting Windows 11 and an assortment of Linux distributions with benchmarks we were left disappointed. Not only did Windows 11 come out faster overall, but related is now Linux also had much higher run-to-run variance due to the mix of P and E cores with Thread Director not making the wisest choices under Linux.

The Ceph open-source distributed storage system can now enjoy better performance out-of-the-box with Linux 5.16...

Red Hat's David Airlie has been working on early support for Vulkan Video API support with Mesa's Radeon "RADV" driver while the past week he spent time working on similar treatment for Intel's open-source "ANV" Vulkan driver and also resurrecting some unfinished VA-API video acceleration code he was working on for the Intel Crocus Gallium3D driver...