Phoronix

Chrome has successfully shamed web-sites not supporting HTTPS and now they are looking to call-out websites that do not typically load fast...

With the Linux 5.4 kernel set to be released in the next week or two, here is a look at the performance going back to the days of Linux 4.16 from early 2018. At least the Linux kernel continues picking up many new features as due to security mitigations and other factors the kernel performance continues trending lower.

SUSE and other companies like DigitalOcean have been working on Linux core scheduling to make virtualization safer particularly in light of security vulnerabilities like L1TF and MDS. The core scheduling work is about ensuring different VMs don't share a HT sibling but rather only the same VM / trusted applications run on siblings of a core...

From System76 setting up their own manufacturing facility for Linux desktops to Dell offering more Linux laptop options, the demand for pre-loaded Linux PCs continues to increase. One of the smaller Linux PC vendors also now expanding is German-based TUXEDO Computers...

Shortwave is a new Internet radio player built for GNOME with GTK3 and has been in development the past year...

The goal for Ubuntu 20.04 is to ship with Python 2 removed since Py2 will be end-of-life after the after the start of the year and this next Ubuntu Linux release is a Long-Term Support release, but there still are many Python 2 depending packages left currently in Debian unstable and Ubuntu's "Focal Fossa" archive...

Arch Linux has updated the behavior when installing the linux, linux-lts, linux-zen, and linux-hardened kernel options on this popular distribution...

Linux 5.4-rc7 was just released as the newest test candidate of the maturing Linux 5.4 kernel. At this stage it's looking like an eighth weekly RC will be warranted next weekend before officially releasing Linux 5.4.0 on 24 November...

Last month I posted benchmarks looking at the Windows 10 vs. Linux OpenGL and Vulkan graphics performance for the Ice Lake "Gen11" graphics. But for those wondering about the CPU/system performance between Windows and Linux for the Core i7-1065G7 with the Dell XPS 7390, here are those benchmarks as we compare the latest Windows 10 to Ubuntu 19.10 and Intel's own Clear Linux platform.

Longtime Linux game developer Timothee Besset has outlined the support introduced by Valve this week in their latest Steam Linux client beta for supporting Linux namespaces / containers. This experimental functionality may in the end provide better support for 32-bit compatibility as more Linux distributions focus solely on x86_64 packages, reducing some of the fragmentation/library conflicts between some Linux distributions and Steam, and other headaches currently plaguing the Steam Linux space...

While Linux 5.4 is rolling out in about two weeks, the out-of-tree Reiser4 file-system has just been updated for Linux 5.3 support...

Over the past year and a half the VKMS Linux DRM driver has come together as the "virtual kernel mode-setting" implementation for headless systems and other environments not backed by a physical display. Interestingly being tacked on their TODO list now is VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) support. Separately, the prominent VKMS developer is now employed by AMD...

Pardon for the rather slow pace of new Phoronix content over the past week (in particular, the lack of big benchmark articles) due to my wife giving birth early and being in the hospital for a few days, but the remainder of November is set to be quite exciting on the Linux/open-source performance front. Here is some of what else is on tap for November...

Taking place 4 and 5 November in San Francisco was the OpenZFS Developer Summit. This two-day open-source ZFS developer summit made possible by Intel, Delphix, Datto, and OSNexus had a lot of interesting presentations from the state of ZFS TRIM/Discard to debugging topics...

The Thunderbolt changes have been merged to char-misc ahead of the upcoming Linux 5.5 merge window...

The first alpha release of the forthcoming OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 is now available for testing with this Clang-built Linux distribution that originates back to the days of Mandrake...

It's been another busy week in KDE land with developers working through the massive code-bases comprising the KDE desktop environment on a variety of features and fixes...

Besides X-Plane being one of the most realistic PC-based flight simulators, this flight simulator from Laminar Research has long supported Linux. Out this weekend is X-Plane 11.40 as the latest update and the last major release before they roll-out their long-awaited Vulkan graphics API support...

With Ubuntu 19.10 bringing some CPU/system performance changes compared to earlier Ubuntu releases as a result of compiler/toolchain upgrades, the newer kernel, and more, here is a quick weekend look at how the Ubuntu 19.10 performance compares across ten different AMD Ryzen and Intel Core systems...

As an alternative to PulseAudio's existing RTP implementation, a new GStreamer-based Real-Time Transport Protocol has been introduced...