Links 18/11/2013: Linux (Kernel) News Roundup
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2013-11-18 14:37:53 UTC
- Modified: 2013-11-18 14:37:53 UTC
Recruitment
-
The foundation thinks that a natural way of promoting the participation of younger people in the Linux kernel development is to reach out to colleges and universities to host training activities where students and faculty learn the ropes of how to contribute to the kernel.
Version 3.13
-
There's many exciting Linux 3.13 kernel features already, but we have another one to talk about today. In the input subsystem update for 3.13, support for the Neonode zForce has been added, an interesting touch-screen technology based on infrared light fields.
-
The Kernel-based Virtual Machine updates for the Linux 3.13 kernel were filed today and includes a fair amount of improvements for virtualization on PowerPC hardware, but there's also some x86 improvements too.
-
While the merge window for the Linux 3.13 kernel isn't even over yet, this next major kernel update is already looking to be rather exciting with a number of new features.
-
For those in need of a high-performance specially-optimized file-system for flash storage devices, the F2FS file-system developed at Samsung has seen more "major enhancements" queued up for the Linux 3.13 kernel.
-
The merge window hasn't even officially opened yet on the Linux 3.13 kernel but it's already super exciting and I can't wait for the new code to start hitting mainline and to benchmark these massive changes to the Linux kernel. Here's just a few things to expect so far but it's already gearing up to be a super exciting release and perhaps the best of 2013.
More Development
-
AMD has just published a new set of Linux kernel patches, revealing Linux support for a Cryptographic Coprocessor (AMD CCP).
-
The btrfs-progs user-space component to the Btrfs file-system has seen a number of commits in recent weeks. Beyond lots of code improvements and bug-fixes, the default meta-data block size was changed for the Btrfs mkfs command.
Events
-
The 3.12 Linux kernel release this week brought with it many new features including multi-threaded RAID5 support in the MD subsystem, the addition of render nodes, and TSO sizing.
-
The Linux Foundation is preparing to host its third LinuxCon Europe and this year for the first time will also host CloudOpen in Europe. The combination of the two events along with a variety of other co-located events taking place next week represents the largest gathering of Linux and open cloud professionals in Europe. From KVM Forum & oVirt Workshop to Xen Project Developer Summit and Yocto Developer Day to the Open Compute Engineering Workshop, there is something for everyone.
-
Linux Foundation Training scholarship winner Abdelghani Ouchabane is a senior software developer at eZono, a medical device startup in Germany that uses Linux to build its software and systems. He's worked on a range of Linux projects over the past five years in this job, including kernel module and driver configuration, system and server configuration, and networking, he said. He's also contributed to many open source projects including Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, Meego, Tizen and Debian.
Graphics Stack
-
Yesterday there was news that OpenACC 2.0 parallel programming support was coming to GCC complete with GPU acceleration support for NVIDIA GPUs. While it was exciting on the surface, it appears that this work may be poisonous and could have a very tough time making it upstream.
The news yesterday was about Oak Ridge, Mentor Graphics, and NVIDIA working to add OpenACC 2.0 parallel programming support to the GCC compiler for C and Fortran. GCC right now doesn't have any support for OpenACC, even the older versions of the specification, and the patches thus far haven't fully exploited the GPU potential besides converting OpenACC to OpenCL or another implementation that just runs OpenACC over OpenMP on the CPU. Mentor Graphics is now responsible for bringing OpenACC 2.0 with NVIDIA GPU support to the GNU Compiler Collection.
-
The xf86-video-freedreno X.Org driver for providing support for Qualcomm's Adreno/Snapdragon graphics hardware has reached version 1.0 in its first stable release.
-
After the support has been within Wayland's Weston reference compositor for several months, developers have now added sub-surfaces support to the Wayland core protocol itself. Wayland sub-surfaces can make for efficient use of video players and windowed OpenGL games on Wayland.
-
Interesting in the Wayland camp this week has been lots of discussions about the XDG-Shell proposal but besides that, a patch-set just appeared that finally adds alt-tab support to Wayland's Weston compositor and also updates the exposay feature.
-
As part of the recent Radeon Rx 200 series and Hawaii GPU launch, AMD also unveiled Mantle as a new graphics rendering API to compete with OpenGL and Direct3D. AMD claims Mantle is easier, faster, and all-around better than OpenGL for game engines and other purposes. This week AMD has renewed their push that they want to see Mantle on Linux and other platforms.
-
The xf86-video-intel 3.0 driver is still on the way and Intel OTC's Chris Wilson has put out today its latest development release that has stability fixes, including further TearFree updates.
-
If you are after a low-end graphics card for use on Linux, up for review today is the Zotac GeForce GT 610 Synergy 1GB graphics card that sells for less than $50 USD. The results in this Linux hardware review compare the GT 610 to a range of other AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards using the proprietary drivers under Ubuntu Linux. Even if you're not interested in the GT 610, this article makes for a nice 12-way Linux graphics card comparison with the very latest AMD/NVIDIA GPU drivers.
-
If you're curious about the state of the Qt5-powered Hawaii Desktop running natively on Wayland, a new video has been uploaded that nicely shows off this new Linux desktop alternative that's designed around Wayland.
Benchmarks
-
For your viewing pleasure today is a 13-way AMD Radeon graphics card comparison when testing out the open-source Radeon Gallium3D drivers on the wide spectrum of ATI/AMD GPUs while looking at the performance for Valve's Source Engine with Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2. Given the imminent arrival of Steam Machines and SteamOS to push Linux gaming into its long-awaited spotlight, is AMD's open-source Linux graphics driver capable of delivering a reasonable level of performance?For your viewing pleasure today is a 13-way AMD Radeon graphics card comparison when testing out the open-source Radeon Gallium3D drivers on the wide spectrum of ATI/AMD GPUs while looking at the performance for Valve's Source Engine with Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2. Given the imminent arrival of Steam Machines and SteamOS to push Linux gaming into its long-awaited spotlight, is AMD's open-source Linux graphics driver capable of delivering a reasonable level of performance?
-
Last week AMD released the Radeon R9 290 "Hawaii" graphics card. The R9 290 is a cut-down R9 290X and sells for just $399 USD. Here are the first Linux benchmarks of the AMD R9 290 using Ubuntu 13.10!
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4, Amazon Linux AMI 2013.09, Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu 13.10, and SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 have been pitted against each other in Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and the Linux performance benchmark results are now available.
-
This testing isn't too different from other open vs. closed-source GPU driver benchmarks run recently on Phoronix but is a fresh look and with some different tests. The Catalyst driver in use was the latest publicly available (Catalyst 13.11 Beta 6 - OpenGL 4.3.12614 - fglrx 13.25.5) and the open-source version was Mesa 10.0-devel with an xf86-video-ati Git snapshot. The Linux 3.12 kernel was used throughout all testing and DPM was enabled for the Radeon Linux driver.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Backlash and Negative Press After Microsoft Tells Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) People to DIE
- Follow-up stories
- Censorship as Signal of Opportunity for Reform
- It remains sad and ironic that Wikileaks outsourced so much of its official communications to Twitter (now X)
- The World Wide Web Has Been Rotting for Years (Quality, Accuracy, and Depth Consistently Decreasing)
- In the past people said that the Web had both "good" and "bad" and that the good outweighed the bad
- Comoros: Windows Plunges to Record Low of About 6% in Country of a Million People (in 2010 Windows Was 100%)
- Many of these people earn a few dollars a day; they don't care for Microsoft's "Hey Hi PC" hype
- The Mail (MX) Server Survey for July 2024 Shows Microsoft Collapsing to Only 689 Servers or 0.17% of the Whole (It Used to be About 25%)
- Microsoft became so insignificant and the most astounding thing is how the media deliberate ignores it or refuses to cover it
- Windows Down From 98.5% to 22.9% in Hungary
- Android is up because more people buy smaller mobile devices than laptops
- Microsoft Windows in Algeria: From 100% to Less Than 15%
- Notice that not too long ago Windows was measured at 100%. Now? Not even 15%.
- Microsoft Windows "Market Share" in New Zealand Plunges to 25%
- Android rising
- SUSE Goes Aryan: You May Not Use the Germanic Brand Anymore (It's Monopolised by the Corporation)
- Worse than grammar Nazis
- Gratis But Not Free as in Freedom: How Let's Encrypt is Dying in Geminispace
- Let's Encrypt is somewhat of a dying breed where the misguided CA model is shunned
-
- UEFI 'Secure Boot' Once Again Bricking PCs and Fake Security Models Are Perishing in Geminispace
- Let's Encrypt has just fallen again
- Links 17/07/2024: New Attacks on the Press, European Patents Squashed Even at Kangaroo Court (UPC)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 17/07/2024: Proponents of Censorship and New Arrivals at Gemini
- Links for the day
- Links 17/07/2024: School Budget Meltdown and Modern Cars as Tracking Nightmares
- Links for the day
- This Should Certainly be Illegal, But the Person Who Helped Microsoft Do This is Still Attacking the Critics of It
- perhaps time for an "I told you so post"
- [Meme] A Computer With an Extra Key on the Keyboard Isn't Everyone's Priority
- (so your telling me meme)
- Africa as an Important Reminder That Eradicating Microsoft Doesn't Go Far Enough
- Ideally, if our top goal is bigger than "get rid of Microsoft", we need to teach people to choose and use devices that obey them, not GAFAM
- Billions of Computers Run Linux and Many Use Debian (or a Derivative of It)
- many devices never get updated or even communicate with the Net, so exhaustive tallies are infeasible
- [Meme] Microsoft is Firing
- Don't worry, Microsoft will have some new vapourware coming soon
- More DEI (or Similar) Layoffs on the Way, According to Microsoft Team Leader
- What happened shortly before Independence Day wasn't the end of it, apparently
- [Meme] Many Volunteers Now Realise the "Open" in "OpenSUSE" or "openSUSE" Was Labour-Mining
- Back to coding, packaging and testing, slaves
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 16, 2024
- IRC logs for Tuesday, July 16, 2024
- [Meme] Ein Factory
- A choice between "masters" (or "master race") is a false choice that results in mass exploitation and ultimately eradication (when there's little left to exploit)
- Links 17/07/2024: Open Source Initiative Lies and Dark Net Thoughts
- Links for the day
- Media Distorting Truth to Promote Ignorance
- online media is rapidly collapsing
- Android Rises to New Highs of Almost 80% in Cameroon
- How many dozens of nations will see Windows at under 10% this coming winter?
- Links 16/07/2024: TikTok Ban in Europe and Yandex Split
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 16/07/2024: On Packrafting and on Trump Shot
- Links for the day
- [Meme] Firefox Users Who Think They Know Better Than Mozilla
- Enjoy Firebook
- Firefox Used to Have About Half the Market in Switzerland, But It Doesn't Stand a Chance Anymore (Chrome Surging This Summer)
- Mozilla has managed to alienate some of the biggest fans of Firefox
- Microsoft's Biggest Losses Are in Europe This Summer
- Microsoft's ability to milk a relatively rich Europe is fast diminishing
- How to Make Software Suck and Discriminate Against People at the Same Time
- ageism glorified
- Bing Was at 2.6% in Russia When LLM Hype Started. Now It's Down to 0.8% (for 3 Months in a Row Already)
- The sharp fall of Bing may mean that exiting the Russian market won't matter to anybody
- [Meme] Microsoft Seems to be Failing to Comply With WARN Act (by Refusing to Announce Mass Layoffs as They Happen)
- since when does Microsoft obey the law anyway?
- Microsoft Layoffs Are Still Too Frequent to Keep Abreast of and Properly (or Exhaustively) Classify
- The "HR" department knows what's happening, but whistleblowers from there are rare
- Bahamas Joined the "5% Windows" Club
- statCounter only traces back about 1 in 20 Web requests to Windows
- Links 16/07/2024: Salesforce Layoffs and Microsoft's DMARC Fail
- Links for the day
- Antenna Abuse and Gemini Abuse (Self-hosting Perils)
- Perhaps all this junk is a sign of Gemini growing up
- Possibly Worse Than Bribes: US Politicians and Lawmakers Who Are Microsoft Shareholders
- They will keep bailing out Microsoft to bail themselves out
- The Software Freedom Conservancy Folks Don't Even Believe in Free Speech and They Act As Imposters (Also in the Trademark Arena/Sense)
- Software Freedom Conservancy was already establishing a reputation for itself as a G(I)AFAM censor/gatekeeper
- Djibouti Enters the Windows "10% Club" (Windows Was 99% in 2010)
- In Africa in general Microsoft lost control
- GNU/Linux Share Doubled in the United States of America (USA) in the Past 12 Months
- Or so says statCounter
- Even in North Korea (Democratic People's Republic Of Korea) Google Said to Dominate, Microsoft Around 1%
- Google at 93.26%
- [Meme] The Red Bait (Embrace... Extinguish)
- They set centos on fire, then offer a (de facto) proprietary substitute for a fee
- Shooting the Messenger to Spite the Message
- segment of a Noam Chomsky talk
- [Video] Boston Area Assange Defense (Yesterday)
- It was published only hours ago
- Guinea: Windows Down From 99.3% to 2.7% 'Market Share'
- Guinea is not a small country
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 15, 2024
- IRC logs for Monday, July 15, 2024
- What's Meant by "Antenna Abuse" (Gemini)
- syndication is not a monopoly in Gemini and if one doesn't condone political censorship, then one can create one's own syndication service/capsule
- Microsoft Layoffs and Entire Unit Termination: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- What an announcement to make just before Independence Day
- Links 16/07/2024: Old Computer Challenge and One Page Dungeon Contest
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Falls Further and Closer Towards 10% (Windows "Market Share") in Kuwait
- more countries entering the "single-digit Windows" (under 10%) club
- Gemini Links 15/07/2024: Antenna's Pro-Hamas Bias Revisited and Old Computer Challenge
- Links for the day
- [Video] Julian Assange, Over One Decade Ago, Cautioning About What the Internet Had Truly Become
- video is not new
- Homage to Malta
- Malta is probably easy for Microsoft to bribe
- IRC at 16
- Logging has been used for us and against us
- In Malta, Android/Linux Has Overtaken Microsoft Windows (According to statCounter)
- statCounter milestone?
- Links 15/07/2024: China’s Economic Problems, Boeing Under Fire
- Links for the day
- 500 Days' Uptime Very Soon
- Good luck doing that with Windows...
- Windows Falls Below 20% in Tunisia
- A month ago we wrote about GNU/Linux in Tunisia
- Links 15/07/2024: Google Wants Wiz and Why "Sports Ruin Everything"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 15/07/2024: Old Computer Challenge and Sending Files via NNCP
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 14, 2024
- IRC logs for Sunday, July 14, 2024