Intel Compute Runtime 24.45 vs. AMD ROCm 6.3 vs. NVIDIA R565 Linux GPU Compute Benchmarks
Complementing yesterday’s fresh Linux gaming benchmarks of mid-range Intel Arc Graphics “Alchemist” vs. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 vs. AMD Radeon RX 7000 series cards ahead of the upcoming Battlemage availability, today’s article is providing a fresh look at the latest Intel Compute Runtime performance for Level Zero / OpenCL on current-gen Intel discrete graphics compared to mid-range AMD Radeon GPUs on ROCm 6.3 and similar NVIDIA … ⌘ Read more

systemd 257 Debuts With systemd-keyutil & systemd-sbsign Tools, Other Improvements
Coincidentally coming one day after the GNU Shepherd 1.0 service manager release, the systemd 257 release is now shipping as the newest feature release for this widely-used service manager / init system to Linux systems. Systemd 257 brings a number of new features and improvements for powering late 2024 and early 2025 Linux distributions… ⌘ Read more

Ptyxis Becomes Ubuntu’s Recommended Replacement To GNOME Terminal
While the Ubuntu desktop has been offered the newer GNOME Console as an alternative to GNOME Terminal, there’s been a recent fondness around Ptyxis and apparently is becoming the recommended replacement to GNOME Terminal for the Ubuntu camp… ⌘ Read more

New Linux Patch Establishes “CONFIG_X86_64_NATIVE” For -march=native Kernel Builds
Last week I wrote about Linux patches cleaning up x86 32-bit kernel builds for x86_64 CPUs. The new iteration of those patches were sent out today, including the addition of a patch adding the CONFIG_X86_64_NATIVE Kconfig tunable for enabling “-march=native” kernel builds to cater your optimized kernel compilation for the CPU on which you are building the kernel… ⌘ Read more

Perf Support For 2,048 CPU Cores Is Becoming Not Enough - Patches Bump Kernel Limit
Currently the Linux kernel’s “perf” performance monitoring subsystem has a limit on 2,048 CPU cores for its CPU map that is set by the MAX_NR_CPUS value. But that’s becoming not enough in today’s high core count era that patches are looking to raise it to a 4,096 CPU core limit by default… ⌘ Read more

Updated Dasharo Firmware Pulls In Raptor Lake Instability Fix, Other Enhancements
For those wanting to run Coreboot or Coreboot-derived firmware on a modern desktop motherboard with good performance and features, the main contender currently is 3mdeb’s Dasharo downstream that can be flashed on the MSI PRO Z790-P/Z790-P motherboards for using with Intel Core Alder Lake and Raptor Lake processors. Firmware consulting firm 3mdeb today published a new Dasharo firmware update for the MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI motherboard… ⌘ Read more

Optimizing Linux MD Bitmap Code Yields 89% Throughput Boost For Quad SSDs
A promising patch for the Linux kernel is optimizing the locking contention and scattered address space for the MD bitmap code to improve both the storage throughput and latency… ⌘ Read more

IBM Deprecating Linux Drivers For CXL Coherent Accelerators & CAPI Flash
IBM engineers announced they are deprecating the upstream CXL & CXLFLASH Linux kernel drivers with plans to then remove the drivers from the mainline kernel the following cycle. Before getting too worked up when seeing the “cxl: Deprecate driver” patch, this is about the Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (CAPI) that predates the Compute Express Link… ⌘ Read more

Servo Browser Engine Landed More Performance Optimizations In November
The Servo browser engine project is out with their latest monthly status update to outline improvements made to this Rust-based open-source engine… ⌘ Read more

NTSYNC Linux Patches Revived To Help Boost Steam Play Gaming Performance
Back in May for the Linux 6.10 kernel the initial bits of the NTSYNC driver was upstreamed for helping to emulate the Windows NT synchronization primitives so Windows games running under Wine/Proton (such as Valve’s Steam Play) can enjoy a very nice performance boost. That NTSYNC code for Linux 6.10 wasn’t yet in functioning shape and now a half-year later the newest NTSYNC patch series has been sent out for review… ⌘ Read more

GNU Shepherd 1.0 Service Manager Released As “Solid Tool” Alternative To systemd
GNU Shepherd as a service manager for both system and user services that is used by Guix and relying on Guile Scheme has finally reached version 1.0. For those not pleased with systemd, GNU Shepherd can be used as an init system and now has finally crossed the version 1.0 milestone after 21 years of development… ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA R565 vs. Linux 6.13 + Mesa 25.0 Git AMD / Intel Graphics For Linux Gaming
It’s been a few months since running any fresh Linux graphics driver comparison benchmarks. But given the imminent availability of the first Intel Arc Battlemage graphics cards, I have been carrying out some fresh Linux GPU driver testing. Given the recently-stabilized NVIDIA R565 Linux driver series and then also the newest upstream code in Linux 6.13 Git and Mesa 25.0-devel for the AMD Radeon and Intel Arc Graphics hardware on … ⌘ Read more

Rust-Based, Memory-Safe PNG Decoders “Vastly Outperform” C-Based PNG Libraries
Video and image encoders/decoders written in the Rust programming language for its memory safety guarantees is often viewed as one of the compelling areas for the programming language to better protect against malformed/malicious content especially within web browsers. Not only are Rust-based PNG image decoders proving to be more secure than C-based decoders, but the performance of the Rust solutions can be even faster… ⌘ Read more

The 2024 LLVM Developers’ Meeting Videos Now Online
For those wishing to kick off the new week with some interesting technical videos and are into compiler tech, the video recordings from the 2024 LLVM Developers’ Meeting are now online… ⌘ Read more

ASUS TUF GAMING X670E PLUS Seeing Linux Sensors Support
For those with the ASUS TUF GAMING X670E PLUS as a ~$230 USD AM5 motherboard for Ryzen 7000/9000 series processors, this desktop motherboard is seeing support tacked onto the asus-ec-sensors hardware monitoring driver so you can enjoy working sensor readings under Linux… ⌘ Read more

Glibc 2.41 Adds C23’s sinpi / cospi / tanpi Functions
Ahead of the GNU C Library “glibc” 2.41 release due out around early February, more C23 features are being finished up. The latest crossing the finish line is support for C23’s sinpi, cospi, and tanpi trigonometric functions… ⌘ Read more

openSUSE Touts Improved Multi-GPU Switching Support
Te openSUSE project shared today that there is enhanced multi-GPU switching support to enjoy now with openSUSE Linux… ⌘ Read more

Raspberry Pi 500 Launches Along WIth Raspberry Pi Monitor
Launched four years ago was the Raspberry Pi 400 as the Raspberry Pi 4 adapted for a keyboard form factor. Launching today is the Raspberry Pi 500 for upgrading that keyboard computer using the Raspberry Pi 5 internals. An official Raspberry Pi Monitor was also released… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.13-rc2 Released With An Initial Batch Of Fixes
Linus Torvalds just issued Linux 6.13-rc2 with an initial serving of bug/regression fixes following last week’s Linux 6.13-rc1 release that capped off the feature-packed Linux 6.13 merge window… ⌘ Read more

Linux EFI Zboot Abandoning “Compression Library Museum”, Focusing On Gzip & Zstd
The Linux kernel EFI Zboot code for carrying the Linux kernel image for EFI systems in compressed form is doing away with its “compression library museum” of offering Gzip, LZ4, LZMA, LZO, XZ, and Zstd compression options to instead just focus on Gzip and Zstd compression support… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.13-rc2 To Workaround Buggy Intel Lunar Lake Leading To Responsiveness Issues
Sent out this morning were the “x86/urgent” updates ahead of Linux 6.13-rc2 due out later today. There are x86 fixes for both Intel and AMD processors this week. Most notable though is fixing some buggy Intel Core Ultra “Lunar Lake” behavior that could lead to responsiveness/delay issues due to the MONITOR implementation being buggy/broken… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu flash-kernel Package Looks To Drop Support For Old ARM Hardware
The flash-kernel package is used for putting the Linux kernel image and initramfs in the boot location for embedded devices that aren’t able to boot directly from /boot. The flash-kernel package is particularly important for older ARM hardware while now Ubuntu maintainers are looking at dropping patches they currently carry for a number of aging ARM platforms… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.13-rc2 To Workaround Buggy Intel Lunar Lake Leading To Responsiveness Issues
Sent out this morning were the “x86/urgent” updates ahead of Linux 6.13-rc2 due out later today. There are x86 fixes for both Intel and AMD processors this week. Most notable though is fixing some buggy Intel Core Ultra “Lunar Lake” behavior that could lead to responsiveness/delay issues due to the MONITOR implementation being buggy/broken… ⌘ Read more

Manjaro 24.2 Released With GNOME 47 Updates, Powered By Linux 6.12 LTS
Manjaro 24.2 “Yonada” is out today as the newest version of this popular desktop focused Linux distribution built atop Arch Linux… ⌘ Read more

Mold 2.35 Released With Big Endian ARM64 Support
Rui Ueyama announced the release today of Mold 2.35 as the latest iteration of this high speed linker alternative to the linkers available from the GCC and LLVM toolchain projects… ⌘ Read more