RMS Comments, GRUB, Libreboot & GCC Dominated GNU Talk In 2017

Written by Michael Larabel in GNU on 9 December 2017 at 03:33 PM EST. Add A Comment
GNU
It was another busy year in the GNU camp.

With the end of the year quickly approaching, here's a look back at the most-viewed GNU news articles on Phoronix for 2017. Enjoy looking back at some of the brightest -- and for some, also controversial -- moments for GNU this year with the twenty most viewed articles:

Richard Stallman: Goodbye to GNU Libreboot
The drama over Libreboot, a downstream of Coreboot, wanting to leave the GNU has come to an end.

GRUB 2.02 Is Ready To Boot Your System
It appears that GRUB 2.02 is now ready for release as the first stable update to GRUB2 since the v2.00 release five years ago.

GRUB 2.02 Is Still Coming Along With Many Features, Even Morse Code Output
The first release candidate to GRUB 2.02 was quietly released at the beginning of the month. GRUB 2.02 is going to be a sizable feature update with it already having been five years since the current stable version, GRUB 2.00.

Glibc Enables A Per-Thread Cache For Malloc - Big Performance Win
Glibc has added a per-thread cache to malloc and enabled it by default.

Libreboot Is Now Considering Whether To Re-Join The GNU
After leaving the GNU last year and criticizing the Free Software Foundation and all the drama that ensued after this project was just part of the GNU for months, Libreboot is considering re-joining the GNU.

Changes To Find With The Upcoming Release Of GCC 7
GCC 7 is expected to see its first stable release this month, GCC 7.1, so here's a look at some of the features to find with this annual feature update to the GNU Compiler Collection.

FSF Certifies Three More Devices For Respecting Your Freedom
The Free Software Foundation has announced three more devices that are certified for "respects your freedom" (RYF), including a laptop, motherboard, and USB sound adapter. But don't get too excited quite yet.

Remacs: Re-Implementing Emacs In Rust
For those looking at other new uses for the Rust programming language, there is now a Rust implementation of the popular Emacs editor.

The GNU Toolchain Has Made Much Progress So Far In 2017
Red Hat's Nick Clifton has written a lengthy update concerning the state of the GNU Toolchain as we near the end of the first quarter, 2017.

D Language Front-End Proposed For GCC 8, 800k Lines of Code
A set of 13 patches amounting to nearly 800k lines of new code were sent out Sunday morning for adding a D language front-end to the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC).

Glibc Now Enables Tuning Framework By Default
Since the end of last year Glibc has offered a tunables framework that could be exposed via the --enable-tunables switch at compile-time while now it's being enabled by default.

Due To A GCC Bug, RDRAND Usage Wasn't As Random As Expected
In a now-fixed bug, the RDRAND/RDSEED instructions for pulling random number generators on modern CPUs may have not been as random as desired when using GCC.

GNU Linux-Libre 4.10: GPU Drivers Remain The Most Frequent Offenders
The GNU Linux-libre 4.10 kernel was released last weekend just after the official Linux 4.10 kernel release while I hadn't noticed the de-blobbed kernel release until today. The Linux-libre folks continue to criticize the open-source GPU DRM drivers as being offenders for using binary blob firmware/microcode.

SUSE Developer Working On AMD Zen Tuning For GCC
Veteran GCC contributor and SUSE developer Jan Hubicka has begun working on some Zen tuning within the GNU Compiler Collection for benefiting the Ryzen / Threadripper / Epyc processors.

GCC Finishing Up C++17 Adjustments, Preparing For C++2A
While C++17 was just formally approved days ago and is now waiting for ISO publication, GCC (and Clang) developers have largely finished up their C++17 (formerly known as "C++1z") support for some time. There are just a few lingering patches for GCC and already are beginning to lay the ground work for C++2a.

GDB 8.0 Released, Adds Many New Features, Drops Java GCJ Support
GDB 8.0 has been released as the newest feature release for this widely-used GNU Debugger.

GNU OrgaDoc Aims To Make It Easy To Copy/Sync Documents Between Computers
The GNU OrgaDoc project has seen its first release in thirteen years.

GNU Binutils 2.28 Released, Adds RISC-V Support
Binutils 2.28 is out today as the latest version of this important GNU package.

GIMP's Progress In 2016, What's Ahead For 2017
GIMP contributor Alexandre Prokoudine published a lengthy blog post today looking back at what were the accomplishments for this open-source image manipulation program in 2016 and some of what's ahead for the program this year.

GCC 7 Moves Onto Only Regression/Doc Fixes, But Will Accept RISC-V & HSA's BRIG
The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is entering its "stage four" development for GCC 7 with the stable GCC 7.1 release expected in March or April.
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Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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