December Should Be Very Exciting For Linux Users

While November was a great and very busy month, December will hopefully be even better. Here's a look at some of the exciting Linux / open-source milestones to be conquered this month.

This month we'll see several software upgrades/releases, among them are:

- KDE 4.12 will see its stable release while there should also be an early tech preview of the next-generation KDE stack running with KDE Frameworks 5 and Qt5. The next-gen "KDE5" stack will become stable in 2014.

- There will continue to be GNOME 3.12 package updates in the unstable 3.11 series. Wayland will be a big, continued focus along with many other improvements throughout the GNOME desktop stack.

- LLVM 3.4 is due for release towards the end of December.

- There will be several release candidates out and the continued stabilization of Linux 3.13; it should be a spectacular release, see 13 Reasons Linux 3.13 Is Going To Be Very Exciting.

- Various other software package updates.

When it comes to Linux hardware reviews / testing at Phoronix, some of the articles coming up this month include:

- A 25+ Way closed-source graphics card comparison will be out in the next day or two. This is to complement last week's 21-way open-source GPU driver benchmarks.

- Fresh multiple system benchmarks of GCC 4.9 and LLVM 3.4 development code.

- More AMD APU Linux benchmarks.

- Linux tests of the Acer C720 Google Chromebook with an Intel "Haswell" Celeron processor. The benchmarks should be interesting for this $199 USD device.

- A Linux ultrabook review of the ASUS Zenbook Prime. This will lead to multiple articles including the current state of NVIDIA Optimus on Linux, Linux power efficiency / performance, etc.

- Linux 3.13 kernel benchmarks including a look at the F2FS/XFS/EXT4/Btrfs file-systems, CPU benchmarks, graphics driver tests, etc.

- Surely plenty more Linux graphics card testing and driver benchmarks.

- Our annual year-in-review articles of the AMD and NVIDIA binary Linux driver releases over the past year.

- A Linux review of a new high-end gaming keyboard launching soon publicly in the US.

- A new Intel Haswell desktop review from a Linux-focused hardware vendor.

- Continued Ultra HD / 4K resolution Linux graphics testing.

- Our other usual benchmarks and articles.

Your feedback and requests for future Phoronix articles can be steered towards the Phoronix Forums and @MichaelLarabel. (Of course, feedback is more highly evaluated if coming from Phoronix Premium users.) Phoronix Test Suite 5.0 will also have some very exciting and interesting news as the bulk of its development will happen from mid-December through January when it becomes my number one priority. Phoronix Test Suite 5.0 will greatly advance not only Linux / open-source benchmarking but automated tests as a whole. There's a lot of great stuff to share shortly! There's also going to be other Steam Linux holiday game releases worth mentioning.