The Most Popular Articles On Phoronix In 2017
This is my last planned Phoronix article for 2017 but will be back up in a few hours with more original content for 2018. With nearly all of the year-end recaps over, there's already been a lot of new benchmark articles and Linux hardware reviews I have been working on to start off 2018. May next year be the best yet with Phoronix to celebrate its 14th birthday.
As one last reminder, at end of day tomorrow (1 January) marks the end of our special premium period where you can help ensure a successful 2018 for Linux hardware reviews, plenty of driver/performance benchmarks, and much more. Thanks for your support with any premium memberships, tips, or simply viewing the site without ad-blockers.
Of the 369 featured articles/reviews this year, the most-viewed ones include:
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Linux Benchmarks
The day many of you have been waiting for is finally here: AMD Zen (Ryzen) processors are shipping! Thanks to AMD coming around at the last minute, I received a Ryzen 7 1800X yesterday evening and have been putting it through its paces. Here is my walkthrough of the Linux experience for the AMD Ryzen and new motherboard and a number of the initial Linux benchmarks for this high-end Zen CPU while much more coverage is coming in the hours and days ahead.
Ubuntu 17.04 Gaming Performance: Budgie vs. GNOME vs. KDE Plasma vs. MATE vs. Unity vs. Xfce
One of the immediate requests that usually comes in with each new Ubuntu release is a comparison of the Linux gaming performance when trying out the different desktop options. From yesterday's Ubuntu 17.04 release, here are Steam Linux gaming tests with Budgie, GNOME Shell, KDE Plasma 5, MATE, Unity 7, and Xfce4 when using an AMD Polaris graphics card on the RadeonSI driver stack.
The Many New Features Of The Linux 4.12 Kernel
With the Linux 4.12 merge window now over, here is a look at some of the most exciting features that were added to the Linux kernel for this next installment.
GCC 7.0 vs. LLVM Clang 4.0 Performance (January 2017)
LLVM Clang 4.0 is set to be released in February while GCC 7 will be released as stable in March~April. For those curious how both compilers are currently performing, here is our latest installment of GCC vs. LLVM Clang benchmarking on Linux x86_64.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X vs. Intel Core i7 7700K Linux Gaming Performance
For those craving some Linux gaming benchmarks from the newly-released AMD Ryzen 7 1800X processor, here are some test results. In this initial comparison are benchmarks of the Ryzen 7 1800K to Core i7 7700K when running these processors at stock speeds while using a Radeon R9 Fury graphics card paired with AMDGPU+RadeonSI for the Linux graphics driver stack.
Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu Linux Gaming Performance With NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060/1080
It's been a while since last testing Windows 10 vs. Linux on different, newer Linux game ports with a variety of GPUs, but that changed this week. As mentioned this weekend, I've been working on a large, fresh Windows vs. Linux gaming performance comparison. The results available today are for NVIDIA with testing a GeForce GTX 1060 and GTX 1080 on Windows 10 Pro x64 and Ubuntu 16.10 x86_64 with the latest drivers and using a variety of newer Direct3D 11/12 / OpenGL / Vulkan games.
The New Changes & Features Of The Linux 4.13 Kernel
With Linux 4.13-rc1 having been released, here's my original look at the new features coming for the Linux 4.13 kernel and the other changes merged over the past two weeks of this new cycle.
The Exciting Features Of Linux 4.14: Zstd, Vega Hugepages, AMD SME, New Drivers
With Linux 4.14-rc1 having been released one day early, here is our look at the new features of Linux 4.14 with the merge window having been closed. There's a lot to get excited about with Linux 4.14 from graphics driver improvements, new hardware improvements, a new Realtek WiFi driver, a PWM vibrator driver, and Btrfs Zstd compression support..
Overclocking The Radeon RX 580 Under Linux
Yesterday I posted the initial Radeon RX 580 Linux benchmarks while now with having more time with this "Polaris Evolved" card I've been able to try out a bit more, like the AMDGPU Linux overclocking support. Here are the ups and downs of overclocking the Radeon graphics card under Linux.
The New Features Of The Linux 4.11 Kernel
If all goes according to plan, Linus Torvalds will have announced the first release candidate of the upcoming Linux 4.11 kernel before the day is through. The Linux 4.11-rc1 release also marks the end of the feature merge window for this kernel cycle. So with that said, here is a look at the new features of the Linux 4.11 kernel that I have been covering through closely watching the Git repository and mailing list over the past two weeks.
Power Use, RAM + Boot Times With Unity, Xfce, GNOME, LXDE, Budgie & KDE Plasma
One of the first follow-on requests from this morning's Razer Blade Stealth Linux testing was for on top of all the other data-sets shared in that article to also look at the RAM usage, battery power draw, and boot times for the different desktop options on Ubuntu 17.04. As the request came in from a Phoronix Premium supporter, I jumped on that and here are some of those numbers.
Ryzen Compiler Performance: Clang 4/5 vs. GCC 6/7/8 Benchmarks
A few days back I posted some fresh AMD Ryzen compiler benchmarks of LLVM Clang now that it has its new Znver1 scheduler model, which helps out the performance of Ryzen on Linux with some of the generated binaries tested. But it was found still that Haswell-tuned binaries are sometimes still faster on Ryzen than the Zen "znver1" tuning itself. For continuing our fresh compiler benchmarks from AMD's new Ryzen platform, here are the latest GCC numbers.
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Linux Benchmarks: Great Multi-Core Performance For $329
Yesterday we posted launch-day Ryzen 7 1800X Linux benchmarks that were particularly appealing for multi-core / heavily-threaded workloads like code compilation. Given all the code compilation done by Linux users in particular, if you were intrigued by the Ryzen 7 1800X performance but find the $499 USD price-tag to be too higher, today I have my initial benchmark figures on the Ryzen 7 1700. The Ryzen 7 1700 is still eight cores and sixteen threads but will only set you back $329 USD as the current low-end Ryzen processor for what's currently available.
Open-Source Nouveau Linux 4.10 + NvBoost vs. NVIDIA Proprietary Linux Driver Performance
Earlier this week I posted some benchmarks showing the open-source NVIDIA (Nouveau) driver performance on Linux 4.10 with the new NvBoost capability for finally being able to hit the "boost" clock frequencies with Kepler graphics cards when using this reverse-engineered driver. While the manual re-clocking and enabling NvBoost is able to increase the Nouveau driver's performance, how do these results compare to using the closed-source NVIDIA Linux driver? These benchmarks answer that question.
Linux 4.12 I/O Scheduler Benchmarks: BFQ, Kyber, Etc
Among the many new features for Linux 4.12 are two new I/O schedulers in mainline: the long-standing BFQ (Budget Fair Queueing) and Kyber, a new I/O scheduler developed at Facebook. Here are some initial benchmarks of these I/O schedulers on the Linux Git code as of this past week.
A Look At The New Features Of GNOME 3.26
With GNOME 3.26 due to be officially released on Wednesday, 13 September, here is a look at the new features to be found in this major desktop update and screenshots from testing the latest GNOME 3.26 packages via Fedora 27's development images.
Ubuntu vs. Fedora vs. openSUSE vs. Manjaro vs. Clear Linux On Intel's Core i9 7900X
Continuing on with our Core i9 7900X Linux benchmarking this week are some numbers when testing this ten-core Skylake-X processor on various Linux distributions under an array of different workloads. Tested for this roundup was Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS, Ubuntu 17.04, Fedora 26, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Manjaro 17.0.2, and Clear Linux 16160.
macOS 10.12.6 vs. Ubuntu 17.04 Benchmarks
With having the Apple MacBook Air out for the Razer Blade Stealth Linux testing comparison, I decided to see how the latest releases of macOS Sierra and Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty Zapus were competing.
GNOME 3.26: Wayland vs. X.Org Performance - Boot Times, Power Use, Memory Use & Gaming
While testing out the near-final GNOME 3.26 this weekend I also ran some benchmarks of it comparing the boot time, memory use, power consumption, and gaming performance when comparing GNOME Shell / Mutter running on Wayland and then an X.Org session.
MSI GeForce GT 1030: A $70 Passively-Cooled Graphics Card, Decent With OpenGL/Vulkan/OpenCL/VDPAU
If you are looking for a low-profile, passively-cooled graphics card, the GeForce GT 1030 launched last week and MSI is out the door with such a capable graphics card while only costing around $70~80 USD. Here are some Linux OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenCL, and VDPAU video acceleration benchmarks of the MSI GeForce GT 1030 compared to various other Radeon and GeForce graphics cards under Ubuntu.
And the overall most-viewed Phoronix news of 2017 out of nearly 3,400 stories:
AMD's Ryzen Will Really Like A Newer Linux Kernel
AMD's Ryzen CPU is finally shipping in a few days! If you are planning to be an early adopter of AMD Ryzen processors, you will really want to be running a newer Linux kernel release for proper support and performance.
Kodi Is Getting A Proper Netflix Plugin
The Kodi HTPC software will soon have a "real" Netflix plugin/add-on for making a better show/movie watching experience.
AMD Confirms Linux Performance Marginality Problem Affecting Some, Doesn't Affect Epyc / TR
This morning I was on a call with AMD and they are now able to confirm they have reproduced the Ryzen "segmentation fault issue" and are working with affected customers.
Some Ryzen Linux Users Are Facing Issues With Heavy Compilation Loads
I haven't encountered this issue myself on any of my Ryzen Linux boxes, but it seems there are a number of Ryzen Linux users who are facing segmentation faults and sometimes crashes when running concurrent compilation loads on these Zen CPUs.
Ryzen-Test & Stress-Run Make It Easy To Cause Segmentation Faults On Zen CPUs
With running a number of new Ryzen Linux tests lately, a number of readers requested I take a fresh look at the reported Ryzen segmentation fault issues / bugs affecting a number of many Linux users. I did and still am able to reproduce the problem.
Oracle Layoffs Hit Longtime Solaris Developers Hard
It looks like the Oracle layoffs just before the US Labor Day indeed hit the SPARC and Solaris groups hard.
Ubuntu To Abandon Unity 8, Switch Back To GNOME
Canonical has announced via Mark Shuttleworth they are ending their development of the Unity 8 desktop environment and will be switching back to GNOME desktop by Ubuntu 18.04.
Intel Memory Bandwidth Allocation Coming To Linux 4.12
Intel Memory Bandwidth Allocation (MBA) support is coming to the Linux 4.12 kernel for allocating defined bandwidth between CPU cores.
DRM Updates Submitted For Linux 4.11, Torvalds Explodes Over Code Quality
David Airlie submitted the main DRM driver updates for the Linux 4.11 kernel, but Linus Torvalds isn't happy about the code quality of a new addition and is considering not accepting the DRM changes for this next kernel release.
Benchmarks Of PHP 7.2 Beta: PHP Is Still Getting Faster
PHP 7.2 Beta 1 was released yesterday as the next step towards this next refinement to PHP7 that is expected to be officially released in November. I couldn't help but to run some initial benchmarks.
Stratis Is Red Hat's Plan For Next-Gen Linux Storage Without Btrfs
Yesterday at Phoronix we were the first to broadcast about Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 deprecating Btrfs and since then it's become more clear what their "next-gen" Linux storage focus has become.
NVIDIA's "Open-Source Guy" Has Left The Company
One of the main public-facing figures to NVIDIA's open-source driver efforts has left the company to pursue a new opportunity.
Ten Exciting Features Of The Linux 4.10 Kernel
The Linux 4.10 kernel didn't end up being released today, but was pushed back by an extra week. However, in looking forward to next weekend, here are ten of the features that excite us about Linux 4.10.
Valve Hires X11 Veteran Keith Packard To Work On The Linux Display Stack
Valve's latest high-profile hire is adding Keith Packard to their roster of Linux graphics driver developers.
Debian 9.0 "Stretch" Might Not Have UEFI Secure Boot Support
Debian 9.0 "Stretch" has seen UEFI Secure Boot support no longer being considered a release blocker but is now just a stretch goal for this upcoming release.
NVIDIA Makes Huge Code Contribution To Qt, New Qt 3D Studio
The Qt Company today announced Qt 3D Studio, a new 3D UI authoring system, thanks to NVIDIA providing Qt with hundreds of thousands of lines of source code making up this application.
It's Now Possible To Disable & Strip Down Intel's ME Blob
Many free software advocates have been concerned by Intel's binary-only Management Engine (ME) built into the motherboards on newer generations of Intel motherboards. The good news is there is now a working, third-party approach for disabling the ME and reducing the risk of its binary blobs.
Richard Stallman: Goodbye to GNU Libreboot
The drama over Libreboot, a downstream of Coreboot, wanting to leave the GNU has come to an end.
Trying AMDGPU-PRO 17.10 On Ubuntu 17.04
In early April AMD released the AMDGPU-PRO 17.10 driver as their first hybrid proprietary driver update in some time. With this update came support for Ubuntu 16.04.2 (and also 16.10, unofficially) but to little surprise it doesn't work out-of-the-box with this week's Ubuntu 17.04 release. But it can be made to work.
Linux 4.11 Doesn't Change The Game For AMD's Ryzen
Linux 4.11 is worthwhile in that it's bringing ALC1220 audio support, the codec used by many Ryzen (and Intel Kabylake) motherboards, but this next kernel version doesn't appear to change Ryzen's performance.
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