RadeonSI, Windows 10, KDBUS & Other Exciting Linux News This Quarter
While the quarter isn't quite over yet, so far there's been 828 news items and 78 reviews/multi-page articles this quarter. It's still the pace of almost ten original news articles each day and generally one featured article. All of this work is made possible by readers viewing this site without any ad-blockers, etc, and through kind Phoronix readers joining Phoronix Premium for ad-free, single-page article viewing access to support the site as well as PayPal tips. If you're not premium yet, there's also a way to become among the select few with lifetime Phoronix Premium access.
The ten most popular news items this quarter included:
RadeonSI Gets OpenGL 4.5 Derivative Control Support
The latest OpenGL 4+ activity in Mesa this week is a Saturday commit landing another OpenGL 4.5 extension for AMD's RadeonSI Gallium3D driver for GCN graphics processors.
I No Longer Have Any Trust In The Nest Protect
Earlier this year I wrote about protecting our Linux test farm with the Nest Protect. While I own ten of these "high tech smoke detectors" and initially recommended, I no longer trust them after a long night.
Mozilla's Servo Engine Now Capable Of Rendering GitHub Near Flawlessly
Mozilla's Servo next-generation layout engine is now nearly spot-on with its rendering of the GitHub.com web-site.
Google Rolls Out OnHub Router, Powered By Gentoo Linux
For those that didn't hear yet, Google announced another hardware product today -- a WiFi router called the OnHub.
The NSA Is Looking At Systemd's KDBUS
The latest "news tip" is from a Phoronix reader who expressed "concerns" that at least one NSA security analyst is going through the code for KDBUS, the systemd-backed in-kernel IPC mechanism that's planning for integration in Linux 4.3.
OpenGL 4.1 Support Now Enabled In Mesa Git For AMD RadeonSI
The OpenGL 4.1 patches for RadeonSI have now landed in Mesa Git master!
EXT3 File-System Driver To Be Removed From The Linux Kernel
With the EXT4 file-system having been stable for years as an evolutionary upgrade to EXT3, the EXT4 module supporting mounting EXT3 file-systems, and most (all?) Linux distributions having switched to EXT4 by default, there's now patches for removing the EXT3 file-system driver from the Linux kernel.
Ubuntu Is Finally Fixing Its Annoying GRUB Setting
An annoying setting of Ubuntu's GRUB configuration is going to be finally addressed in Ubuntu 15.10 and will be addressed in current Ubuntu releases via a stable release update.
Shashlik: A New Way To Run Android Apps On Linux
Shashlik is an "Android Simulated Environment" to serve as a launcher for running Android applications on a conventional GNU/Linux distribution.
Steam's First Linux-Exclusive Launch Title Is Out
In the comments to this morning's article about the Steam Linux survey numbers for last month it was pointed out that as of last week there is a Linux-exclusive title currently on Steam.
Meanwhile, the most popular reviews/featured articles were:
A Linux User's Review Of Microsoft Windows 10
When I first started to talk to Michael about working with him this summer, one of the things we agreed on is that I would do a review of Windows 10. While I vastly prefer Linux as my day-to-day operating system, I do use Windows for gaming, and I also support Windows clients as part of my job at my University.
A Week With GNOME As My Linux Desktop: What They Get Right & Wrong
When I sent the Fedora 22 KDE Review off to Michael I did it with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn't because I didn't like KDE, or hadn't been enjoying Fedora, far from it. In fact, I started to transition my T450s over to Arch Linux but quickly decided against that, as I enjoyed the level of convenience that Fedora brings to me for many things.
NVIDIA's Tegra X1 Delivers Stunning Performance On Ubuntu Linux
NVIDIA's Tegra X1 64-bit ARM SoC running (non-Android) Linux is a beast! I was given access to a SHIELD Android TV that was configured to run Ubuntu Linux, which has led for some exciting benchmarks. In some workloads, the Tegra X1 comes up just shy of an Intel Core i3 "Broadwell" system. The Tegra X1 has me very excited about the future of ARMv8 hardware on Linux and NVIDIA's continued Tegra advancements.
The AMD Radeon R9 Fury Is Currently A Disaster On Linux
When AMD announced the Radeon R9 Fury line-up powered by the "Fiji" GPU with High Bandwidth Memory, I was genuinely very excited to get my hands on this graphics card. The tech sounded great and offered up a lot of potential, and once finally finding an R9 Fury in stock, shelled out nearly $600 for this graphics card. Unfortunately though, thanks to the current state of the Catalyst Linux driver, the R9 Fury on Linux is a gigantic waste for OpenGL workloads. The R9 Fury results only exemplifies the hideous state of AMD's OpenGL support for their Catalyst Linux driver with a NVIDIA graphics card costing $200 less consistently delivering better gaming performance.
The Many New Features Of The Linux 4.2 Kernel
If all goes according to plan, the Linux 4.2 kernel merge window will close this afternoon followed by the immediate release of the Linux 4.2-rc1 test version. With all major pull requests having already been submitted for Linux 4.2, here's an overview of the exciting new features and changed functionality to look forward to with this kernel version to officially debut later this summer!
Intel Iris Pro 6200 Graphics Are A Dream Come True For Open-Source Linux Fans
The Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 (GT3e) as the fastest Broadwell GPU boasting an eDRAM cache and 48 execution units is a dream for open-source fans. Backed by a fully open-source Linux graphics driver, the Iris Pro Graphics 6200 found on the socketed Core i7 5775C is a dream come true that can compete with mid-range Radeon graphics cards on their open-source driver.
NVIDIA GeForce: Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu 15.04 Linux OpenGL Benchmarks
Earlier this week I ran some Windows 10 vs. Linux benchmarks of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, the latest AAA game that's been ported to Linux. Those results showed the Linux version of this game running much slower than Windows, so while having a Win10 installation around I decided to also run some fresh OpenGL Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu Linux benchmarks on some older titles. Here are those results.
Shadow of Mordor Performance: Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu Linux
Last week Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was released for Linux after this AAA game premiered for Windows last year. Following its release I ran some Shadow of Mordor Linux benchmarks (and part two). Today are results on the same system when comparing the performance of this game under Ubuntu 15.04 to that of Windows 10 x64 Pro.
A New Linux File-System Aims For Speed While Having ZFS/Btrfs-Like Features
Another year, another new file-system, or so it seems in the Linux world. The main goal for this new file-system is to "match ext4 and xfs on performance and reliability, but with the features of btrfs/zfs."
How To Make CS:GO Run Much Faster On AMD Catalyst For Linux
Should you be using a Radeon graphics card with the AMD Catalyst Linux driver and are disappointed by the poor performance, there is a very easy workaround for gaining much better performance under Linux... In some cases a simple tweak will yield around 40% better performance!
Add A Comment
