Fresh GPU Benchmarks, Fedora Features & More Spectre Were Popular In July
With just over 300 original articles for July on Phoronix written solely by your's truly, it was a bit of a lighter month than normal due to a press event last week occupying a fair amount of time. But all-around, July 2018 was certainly interesting in the ever evolving Linux and open-source space. If you enjoy all of the original content on Phoronix each and every day, consider showing your support by joining Phoronix Premium for enjoying the site ad-free, multi-page articles on a single page, priority feedback/requests, and other benefits. PayPal tips are also gratefully accepted.
With that said, the ten most popular new articles for July on Phoronix were:
Vulkan vs. OpenGL Performance For Linux Games
It has been a while since last publishing some Linux GPU driver benchmarks focused explicitly on the OpenGL vs. Vulkan performance, but that changed today with a fresh look at the performance between these two Khronos graphics APIs when tested with AMD and NVIDIA hardware on the latest RadeonSI/RADV and NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers.
The NVIDIA/AMD Linux GPU Gaming Benchmarks & Performance-Per-Dollar For July 2018
In part with GPU demand by crypto-currency miners waning a bit, NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon graphics card availability at retailers has been improving in recent weeks as well as seeing less inflated prices than just recently had been the case. Given the better availability and stabilizing prices, here is a fresh look of the current line-up of GeForce and Radeon graphics cards under Ubuntu Linux using the newest AMD/NVIDIA drivers and also providing performance-per-dollar metrics given current retail prices.
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X: Windows 10 vs. Linux Performance
Recently there have been several Linux distribution benchmark comparisons on Phoronix to test the latest Linux OS releases, including several comparing to the current Microsoft Windows 10 performance. Those recent tests have all be done with various Intel CPUs, but for those curious about the AMD Windows vs. Linux performance, here are some fresh benchmarks as we approach the end of July.
Intel Core i7 8086K Linux Performance
Intel announced the limited edition Core i7 8086K processor in June to celebrate 40 years since the introduction of the original 8086 processor that ushered in the x86 architecture. The Core i7 8086K is now widely available albeit with an apparent limited time available. This celebratory CPU is built off Intel's existing Coffeelake CPU micro-architecture but with an elevated CPU base frequency and a turbo frequency that tops out at 5.0GHz to make it the company's highest-performing mainstream desktop CPU to date.
Windows Server 2016 vs. FreeBSD 11.2 vs. 8 Linux Distributions Performance
Given the recent releases of FreeBSD 11.2, Scientific Linux 6.10, openSUSE Leap 15, and other distribution updates in the past quarter, here are some fresh benchmarks of eight different Linux distributions compared to FreeBSD 11.2 and Microsoft Windows Server 2016. The tested Linux platforms for this go-around were CentOS 7.5, Clear Linux 23610, Debian 9.4, Fedora Server 28, openSUSE leap 15.0, Scientific Linux 6.10, Scientific Linux 7.5, and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
20-Way NVIDIA/AMD Vulkan Linux Gaming Performance Comparison
For those curious about the current performance state for the recent wave of Vulkan-powered Linux games, which so far are primarily Linux game ports from Feral Interactive, aside from Valve's Dota 2 and Croteam's games, here are some fresh benchmarks using twenty different graphics cards on the latest drivers.
A Closer Look At The Linux Laptop Power Use Between Ubuntu, Fedora, Clear & Antergos
Earlier this month I posted some results when looking at the Windows 10 versus Linux power consumption using a Kabylake-R Dell XPS 13 laptop and testing Windows 10, Ubuntu 18.04, Fedora Workstation 28, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Clear Linux. For some additional numbers, I took three other distinctly different laptops and tested them on a few Linux distributions to see how their battery life and power efficiency compare as additional metrics to complement this earlier data.
Mesa 18.0/18.1/18.2 RadeonSI + RADV Benchmark Comparison With Radeon RX 580 / R9 Fury / RX Vega 64
For those currently making use of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS with its default graphics stack (Linux 4.15 + Mesa 18.0) and are wondering if it makes sense upgrading to a newer version of the Linux kernel and/or Mesa, here is an extensive Mesa+AMDGPU comparison testing four graphics driver configurations across three popular AMD Radeon graphics cards.
Dell XPS 13: Windows 10 vs. Linux Distribution Benchmarks
Recently I have published benchmarks looking at Windows Server and FreeBSD against eight Linux distributions as well as a 9-way Linux desktop OS benchmark comparison while the latest in this string of fresh Linux distribution benchmarks is looking at the Linux laptop performance impact, if any, between these operating systems. Up for this benchmarking dance was Microsoft Windows 10, Windows 10 when running Ubuntu 18.04 via WSL, Ubuntu 18.04 itself, Fedora Workstation 28, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Clear Linux.
Benchmarking The Performance Impact Of Speculative Store Bypass Disable For Spectre V4 On Intel Core i7
In late May Spectre V4 was made public and coinciding with the public reveal was the Linux kernel patches for the Speculative Store Bypass Disable (SSBD) mode for mitigating this latest side-channel attack. For SSBD on Intel CPUs, updated microcode is required and those patched microcode files are now being delivered down through new BIOS updates from motherboard vendors. In recent days with seeing ASUS motherboards get the updated supported, I decided to run some initial Core i7 Coffeelake benchmarks with/without the SSBD support being enabled in the Linux kernel.
And the most popular news stories:
Apple Rejects iOS App For Using MoltenVK Vulkan, Alleged Non-Public API
Back in February MoltenVK was open-sourced as part of The Khronos Group and Valve working harder to get Vulkan working on macOS/iOS by mapping it through to using Apple's Metal Graphics/Compute API. The most notable user of MoltenVK on macOS to date is the Vulkan Dota 2 on Mac, but for those looking to use this Vulkan-to-Metal framework on iOS, it looks like Apple might be clamping down.
A Look At The Windows 10 vs. Linux Power Consumption On A Dell XPS 13 Laptop
With the current-generation Dell XPS 13 XPS9370-7002SLV currently being tested at Phoronix, one of the areas I was most anxious to benchmark was the power consumption... For years it has been a problem of Linux on laptops generally leading to less battery life than on Windows, but in the past ~2+ years there has been some nice improvements within the Linux kernel and a renewed effort by developers at Red Hat and elsewhere on improving the Linux laptop battery life. Here are some initial power consumption numbers for this Dell XPS 13 under Windows 10 and then various Linux distributions.
Fedora 29 Is Shaping Up To Be A Very Exciting Release
While Fedora 28 has been a fantastic release, Fedora 29 that is currently under development for releasing in October is going to be what feels like a massive amount of changes.
There Are A Ton Of New Features/Improvements Heading Towards Linux 4.19
While the Linux 4.18 kernel is still likely a week and a half out from being released at least, a ton of new material has been staged already ahead of the Linux 4.19 cycle that has us excited.
Fedora 29 Dropping GCC From Their Default Build Root Has Been Causing A Heated Debate
One of the surprisingly controversial changes being implemented for Fedora 29 is dropping GCC and GCC-C++ from the default BuildRoot for assembling Fedora packages with Koji and Mock.
A Look At The Linux vs. Windows Power Use For A Ryzen 7 + Radeon RX Vega Desktop
Recently I have been posting a number of Linux laptop battery benchmarks including how the power consumption compares to Windows 10. If you are curious how these numbers play out on the desktop side and when using AMD hardware, here are some results for your viewing pleasure with a Ryzen 7 2700X and Radeon RX Vega 64 desktop system.
How A KDE Developer Used C++17 & Boost.Python For About A 8,000x Speed-Up
Open-source developer Antonio Larrosa who contributes to KDE and openSUSE has been developing a command-line music manager called Bard. He's written an interesting post about how he sped up some of his operations by around eight-thousand times faster.
ARM Launches "Facts" Campaign Against RISC-V
It looks like Arm Limited is going on the offensive against the RISC-V open-source processor instruction set architecture.
Kdenlive's Significantly Refactored Video Editor Is Now Ready For Testing
Developers working hard on the Kdenlive open-source video editor are preparing to unveil their significantly refactored code-base in the upcoming KDE Applications 18.08 release. But for helping weed out the bugs, you can now test an AppImage for this big release that is nearly two years in the making.
Browsh: A Modern, Text-Based Web Browser
If the Lynx open-source text-based browser isn't satisfying your needs with viewing modern web sites via the terminal, Browsh is a new entrant into the text-based web-browser space that seeks to support modern web standards.
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