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Linux Hardware Reviews, Performance Benchmarks & Open-Source / Free Software News
Updated: 15 min 29 sec ago

Vulkan 1.1.129 Brings VK_KHR_buffer_device_address To Query Buffer Addresses

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 20:51
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

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 20:00
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

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 18:05
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

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 17:47
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

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 16:01
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

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 14:23
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

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 13:03
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

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 09:00
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

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 06:35
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

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 04:00
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...

The Combined Impact Of Mitigations On Cascade Lake Following Recent JCC Erratum + TAA

Sun, 11/24/2019 - 23:37
Following the initial tests earlier this month from the disclosures of the JCC Erratum (Jump Conditional Code) that required updated Intel CPU microcode to address and on the same day the TSX Async Abort (TAA) vulnerability that required kernel mitigations to address, which I have run benchmarks of those CPU performance impacts individually, readers have requested tests looking at the current overall impact to the mitigations to date.

It's That Time Of The Year For The Annual Phoronix Premium Sale To Show Your Support

Sun, 11/24/2019 - 21:22
It's that time of the year for our annual promotion of Phoronix Premium for the US Thanksgiving / Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales week... Here is the latest on how you can show your support for our Linux and open-source news coverage and benchmarking while enjoying the site ad-free, multi-page articles on a single page, and other benefits...

KUnit Slated To Land With The Linux 5.5 Kernel For Expanding Kernel Unit Testing

Sun, 11/24/2019 - 21:12
As part of the KSelfTest updates sent in early for the Linux 5.5 merge window opening tonight/tomorrow, Google's KUnit is included in this pull request as the basic kernel unit testing framework...

The Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Will End Out 2019 In Poor Shape Still For Newer GPUs

Sun, 11/24/2019 - 20:49
For the imminent Linux 5.5 kernel cycle we have talked about exciting AMD Radeon and Intel graphics driver changes on deck from Navi OvrDrive overclocking to more Intel Tiger Lake and Jasper Lake bits, AMDGPU HDCP support, and other features queued. But what about the open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" Linux driver?..

KDE Got More Polishing Ahead Of The Holidays While First KDE Frameworks 6 Sprint Started

Sun, 11/24/2019 - 20:35
It was a busy week in the KDE space...

GNUstep Might Deprecate Support For GNU's GCC In Favor Of LLVM Clang

Sun, 11/24/2019 - 15:53
GNUstep, the longstanding GNU Project implementing Apple's Cocoa frameworks, might end up deprecating support for the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) to focus its compiler support on LLVM's Clang...

64-Bit ARM Updates Sent In Ahead Of The Linux 5.5 Cycle

Sun, 11/24/2019 - 14:47
Catalin Marinas who oversees the 64-bit ARM (ARM64 / AArch64) architecture code within the mainline kernel has already submitted his pull request early for the Linux 5.5 kernel cycle beginning tonight or early on Monday...

VirtualBox 6.1 Close To Release With 3D Improvements, Nested Hardware Virtualization

Sun, 11/24/2019 - 13:05
In addition to Oracle having shipped a Solaris update this past week, prior to calling it a weekend their virtualization crew released VirtualBox 6.1 RC1...

LLVM Developers Have Been Reviewing Work To Offset The Performance Hit From Intel JCC

Sun, 11/24/2019 - 07:41
With the Jump Conditional Code (JCC) Erratum that was made public earlier this month and ushered in new Intel microcode to mitigate this Skylake to Cascade Lake design defect, compiler/toolchain patches have been in the works to help offset the performance cost incurred from the updated microcode. Besides the GNU Assembler work we've talked about several times since JCC came to light, the LLVM folks have also been reviewing their comparable changes...

Rosewill RSV-4310 - Useful Revision To One Of The Best Value 4U Server Cases

Sun, 11/24/2019 - 04:17
Over the years at Phoronix we have easily close to forty if not more Rosewill 2U and 4U sever cases... Rosewill's server cases have been among the best value enclosures when not needing any extra features like hot-swap bays, etc. For under $100 USD, their Rosewill 4U cases have been a favorite due to the cost yet good quality, fan filter, etc. A new revision out this summer is the Rosewill RSV-4310 that appears to have replaced the likes of the RSV-R4000. The RSV-4310 4U enclosure does bring some nice minor updates to the base enclosure we've come to know and appreciate though is more costly.

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