Mesa 20.0 Lands A Load/Store Vectorizer As Latest "ACO" Backend Improvement
While the Radeon "ACO" compiler back-end performance is already looking very good in the speed department over the AMDGPU LLVM back-end for the Vulkan driver as shown in recent benchmarks, it's getting even better...
Linux 5.5 To Finally Wire Up EFI RNG Code For x86 As Another Source Of Entropy
Since 2016 the Linux kernel on ARM has invoked the EFI random number generator (RNG) protocol for serving as an additional source of entropy during early boot. With Linux 5.5 in early 2020 that code is finally happening for x86/x86_64...
Intel's SVT-AV1 0.7.5 Released With AVX2 + AVX-512 Optimizations
Intel's crew maintaining the Scalable Video Technology open-source video encoders on Monday issued a new pre-release of SVT-AV1 in an effort to further speed-up AV1 video encoding on CPUs...
Linux 5.5 Crypto Code Has The Changes To Usher In WireGuard
The cryptography subsystem changes for the Linux 5.5 kernel are notable...
Some Fedora Users Concerned GNOME Software Promotes Proprietary Software With Flathub
The Fedora Workstation working group has been weighing the matter of the GNOME Software "app store" recommending/promoting proprietary software. But this isn't something that is done out-of-the-box but rather when activating Flathub where Flatpaks can be installed for both open and closed-source software...
Devuan 2.1 Released - Still Delivering Debian 9 Without Systemd
Devuan 2.1 is available as the latest release of this spin of Debian GNU/Linux that works without a dependence on systemd. Devuan 2.1 remains focused on "init freedom" though this new release is still tracking the older Debian 9 "Stretch" branch...
Linux 5.5 Begins Sanity Checking RdRand Output Due To Buggy Processor Behavior
The in-development Linux 5.5 kernel will begin sanity checking the RdRand instruction output for randomness on CPU boot/resume due to the recent spat of AMD CPUs that have yielded non-random RdRand output...
Kernel Concurrency Sanitizer Set For Linux 5.5 To Uncover Data Race Conditions
Adding to the list of changes on deck for the Linux 5.5 kernel is a new "sanitizer" for spotting data race conditions...
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X / 3960X Linux Benchmarks
After the embargo on the Intel Core i9 10980XE expired a few hours ago, now we are allowed to share the performance numbers on the new AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and 3970X processors. These new Zen 2 HEDT CPUs pack a real performance punch, but do come in as more expensive than the i9-10980XE and there is one boot-stopping Linux bug to mention with a workaround... But besides that lone Linux support caveat, the Threadripper 3960X and Threadripper 3970X absolutely dominate in performance.
The Workaround To Boot Linux On AMD Threadripper 3960X/3970X Systems
As outlined in our AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X / 3970X Linux review, these new Zen 2 Threadripper processors are phenomenal processors that offer significant uplift over earlier Threadripper CPUs and easily dominate over Intel's Core i9 HEDT competition. But there is one big issue right now with the Linux support: on Ubuntu and the like, it doesn't boot without a workaround. Here's that workaround for easy future reference...
Vulkan 1.1.129 Brings VK_KHR_buffer_device_address To Query Buffer Addresses
Vulkan 1.1.129 is out this morning as another weekly update to this graphics API specification and in tow comes one new extension...
Linux 5.5 To Perform Late CPU Microcode Updates In Parallel
Months ago we reported on vendors and cloud providers being interested in restoring parallel CPU microcode updates on Linux for helping large core count servers. With Linux 5.5 that change is coming...
GNU Linux-libre 5.4-gnu Released As The New Deblobbed Kernel
Just hours after Linus Torvalds released Linux 5.4, the GNU folks maintaining "GNU Linux-libre" released their v5.4 kernel that continues "deblobbing" the kernel for ensuring no proprietary firmware/microcode can be loaded by the drivers nor support for loading closed-source kernel modules...
Valve's Open-Source Driver Developers Revise Their RADV "Secure Compile" Feature
Last month Valve's open-source Linux GPU driver developers introduced a "secure compile" feature to the Radeon Vulkan driver to do just as the name implies and making use of SECCOMP filters for enforcing the security aspect. They have now revised this implementation in order to provide faster shader compile times...
Intel Core i9 10980XE Linux Performance Benchmarks
Intel today is rolling out the Core i9 10980XE as their new Cascade Lake X-Series processor that features 18 cores / 36 threads with a maximum turbo frequency of 4.6GHz and TBM 3.0 frequency of 4.8GHz. Following a last minute change, Intel moved up the embargo lift time of the Core i9 10980XE so here are the results we can share with you right now.
Habana Labs Begins Preparing For Future ASIC SUpport In Their Linux Driver
With the Linux 5.5 kernel now in development the Habana Labs AI startup is preparing for supporting future chips with their open-source Linux kernel driver...
UBports' Ubuntu Touch Porting Now Easier To Newer Devices
The UBports community developers maintaining Ubuntu Touch have landed the 64-bit ARM (ARM64/AArch64) version of libhybris into their "Edge" development branch. This in turn opens up Ubuntu Touch to more easier porting to newer Android devices...
Linux 5.4 Kernel Released With exFAT Support, Faster Radeon Graphics, New Hardware
Linus Torvalds has officially released the Linux 5.4 "Kleptomaniac Octopus" kernel this evening as was expected. Linux 5.4 is the last major stable kernel release of the year and brings a lot of new hardware support particularly on the graphics processor front, Microsoft exFAT support is finally available, and a plethora of other new features and improvements to existing functionality...
GNOME 3.35.2 Released As Another Step Towards The GNOME 3.36 Desktop
GNOME 3.35.2 is out as the latest development release on the route to GNOME 3.36 due out next March...
AMDKFD/ROCm GPU Compute Can Work On POWER Systems Like Raptor's Talos II
While NVIDIA graphics in IBM POWER systems have been known to make a powerful combination for supercomputer deployments, for those wanting a libre GPU compute experience can also use POWER with AMD Radeon's open-source driver with a pending patch to the kernel driver...