Linux Hardware Reviews, Benchmarks & Open-Source News
Updated: 27 min ago
Many Networking Improvements & New Wired/Wireless Devices For Linux 6.9
The big set of networking subsystem updates have been sent in for the Linux 6.9 merge window including a number of new wired and wireless devices being supported as well as a number of core networking improvements and optimizations...
AdaptiveCpp 24.02 Released: "One Of The Best SYCL Compilers" For Performance
AdaptiveCpp 24.02 is out this week as the newest version of this SYCL compiler formerly known as hypSYCL and Open SYCL. AdaptiveCpp supports C++-based heterogeneous programming models targeting all major CPU and GPU vendors thanks to SYCL and C++ standard parallelism...
Too Many Debug Messages Were Reportedly Slowing Down Some AMD Linux Systems
An interesting anecdote was mentioned as part of the x86/misc changes queued for the Linux 6.9 kernel: on some unnamed AMD systems, NMI debug messages were too excessive that they actually slowed down the systems...
Intel Continues Prepping The Linux Kernel For X86S
Nearly one year ago Intel published the X86S specification (formerly stylized as "X86-S") for simplifying the Intel architecture by removing support for 16-bit and 32-bit operating systems. X86S is a big step forward with dropping legacy mode, 5-level paging improvements, and other modernization improvements for x86_64. With the Linux 6.9 kernel more x86S bits are in place for this ongoing effort...
Dynamic Kernel Stacks Proposed For Linux With Big Memory Savings
A "request for comments" patch series was posted on Monday for a new dynamic kernel stacks feature for Linux. Early testing has shown the potential for significant memory savings...
Intel FRED Merged For Linux 6.9 As An Important Improvement With Future CPUs
After two years of talking about Intel FRED as Flexible Return and Event Delivery for overhauling how transitions are done between privilege levels (CPU rings), the support code was finally in good shape for merging now with the Linux 6.9 kernel...
Microsoft's DirectX Shader Compiler Sees Improved Linux Build Support
This is their LLVM/Clang-based shader compiler for compiling HLSL programs into the DirectX Intermediate Language (DXIL) that can then be fed to DirectX GPU drivers from the different vendors. While Microsoft Windows is obviously the main focus, today's update does improve the Linux build support...
Btrfs Enjoys Performance Optimizations With Linux 6.9
SUSE's David Sterba sent out the Btrfs updates today for the Linux 6.9 merge window. Besides stabilization and bug fixes there are also some minor performance optimizations to see with this next kernel...
AMD P-State Preferred Core Submitted For Linux 6.9 While Intel Meteor Lake Gets Tuned
The in-development Linux 6.9 kernel is finally landing support for AMD Preferred Core as part of the power management updates for this mid-2024 kernel release...
Intel Makes Continuous Profiler Open-Source To Help Improve CPU Performance
Intel this morning released Continuous Profiler as open-source, a software solution developed by Intel Granulate for aiming to help boost CPU performance...
GNU Linux-libre 6.8-gnu Dealing With Blobs From New Intel Drivers
GNU Linux-libre 6.8-gnu is out as the newest downstream kernel variety endorsed by the Free Software Foundation that takes the upstream Linux kernel but does away with proprietary module support and stripping out drivers/functionality contingent upon binary-only microcode/firmware and other elements not deemed up to their free software standards...
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS To Support Installs With NVMe-Over-TCP Drives
The Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release next month will roll out initial support in its server installer for being able to handle root file-system setups on NVMe-over-TCP scenarios for remote drives...
Linux 6.9 Making It Easier Managing Security Mitigation Options
The x86/core changes were submitted today for the now-open Linux 6.9 merge window. Among other changes, the x86 CPU security mitigation options within the Linux kernel Kconfig have been adjusted where appropriate to make more clear the options/features are for security mitigations...
AMD Posts Performance Monitoring Patches For Zen 5 CPUs
While Linux 6.8 carries some elements of Zen 5 CPU support, more upstream Linux enablement for the next-generation AMD processors remains ongoing. Sent out this morning were the initial patches around AMD Zen 5 performance monitoring and events for the perf subsystem...
Raspberry Pi V3D Graphics Driver Preps For Super Pages To Boost Performance
Igalia continues maintaining the Broadcom V3D open-source graphics driver code that is used by the Raspberry Pi single board computers. With a new patch series posted today for the V3D DRM driver, support for Super Pages is enabled to help with enhancing the graphics performance. In many benchmarks having Super Pages can enhance the performance by a few percent but in some extreme cases can be 19~42% faster...
x86/cpu Change For Linux 6.9 Slightly Eases Future AMD Zen CPU Enablement
A number of x86-related pull requests were already submitted today for kicking off the new Linux 6.9 merge window. With the x86/cpu pull for this new kernel cycle there is just one patch and it's for slightly easing future AMD Zen processor enablement under Linux...
Linux 6.8 Released As Stable With New Intel Xe Graphics Driver
Linus Torvalds has gone ahead and released Linux 6.8 as stable today rather than drawing this cycle into overtime...
Awesome Changes Coming With Linux 6.9: Lots From Intel/AMD, FUSE Passthrough & More Rust
Depending upon how Linus Torvalds is feeling today, Linux 6.8 could debut today as stable and in turn mark the opening of the Linux 6.9 merge window... Otherwise it will be punted off by one week. In any event, there's a lot of interesting work queuing for Linux 6.9 as shared in today's preview...
Linux 6.9 To Allow AMD P-State With ACPI CPPC V2 For Threadripper 3000 Series CPUs
The AMD P-State CPU frequency scaling driver works with Zen 2 and newer processors supporting ACPI Collaborative Processor Performance Controls (CPPC) but to date this hasn't worked for Threadripper 3000 series processors with the TRX40 chipset. That though is finally being fixed up with Linux 6.9 thanks to a one-line code change...
Radeon Memory Visualizer Hooks Up With Qualcomm Adreno Vulkan Driver
Thanks to the nature of open-source and AMD making their Radeon Memory Visualizer "RMV" open-source under the GPUOpen umbrella, outside of AMD graphics drivers it's found usage elsewhere. Back in January I wrote how Intel's open-source Vulkan driver was adapted for being able to interface with the Radeon Memory Visualizer. Now this week the Qualcomm Adreno "TURNIP" Vulkan driver has also been wired up for enabling RMV integration...