Linux (Kernel) News From the Past Week
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-07 15:34:56 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-07 15:34:56 UTC
Summary: News about Linux, accumulated and sorted over the past days for easier digestion
Linux 3.14
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With yesterday's release of the Linux 3.14-rc1, here's a look at the top features that were merged for introduction in the Linux 3.14 kernel.
The mentioned features are what I've found most interesting about this next major kernel release to date based upon the dozens of articles I've already authored on Phoronix about Linux 3.14, my testing already of 3.14 development code on multiple systems, analytics via Anzwix, etc.
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In a fixes pull request sent in by Red Hat's David Airlie last night, a handful of DRM driver bugs were corrected. Additionally, there's an update to the command submission (CS) parser for the R600 and R700 generation GPUs (the Radeon HD 2000 through HD 4000 series hardware) to support setting up the OpenGL Geometry Shader rings. The Evergreen GPUs and newer already has this GS support within their CS parser.
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"I realize that as a number, 3.14 looks familiar to people, and I had naming requests related to that. But that's simply not how the nonsense kernel names work," Torvalds wrote. "You can console yourself with the fact that the name doesn't actually show up anywhere, and nobody really cares. So any pi-related name you make up will be *quite* as relevant as the one in the main Makefile, so don't get depressed."
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Linux kernel 3.14 RC1 includes updated drivers, architecture updates (ARM mostly, x86, PowerPC, s390, mips, and ia64), core kernel improvements, networking, mm, tooling, etc.
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While the EXT4 changes and XFS alterations for the Linux 3.14 kernel weren't too exciting, the Btrfs file-system update was submitted today for Linux 3.14 and it's definitely exciting.
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These latest MIPS designs, which were announced back in 2012, are described as "the interAptiv is a power-efficient multi-core microprocessor for use in system-on-chip (SoC) applications. The interAptiv combines a multi-threading pipeline with a coherence manager to deliver improved computational throughput and power efficiency. The interAptiv can contain one to four MIPS32R3 interAptiv cores, system level coherence manager with L2 cache, optional coherent I/O port, and optional floating point unit."
Linux 3.13
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After the recent tests of AMD's Kaveri APU with DDR3-800MHz to DDR3-2133MHz Linux memory testing and following up with AMD Kaveri DDR3-2400MHz testing on Ubuntu Linux, many Phoronix readers followed up with a request of new memory testing done on the Intel side. In this article are benchmarks of a Core i5 Haswell CPU looking at the CPU and graphics performance impact with memory frequency scaling on Ubuntu 14.04 with the Linux 3.13 kernel.
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The first update for the stable Linux kernel 3.13 has been announced by Greg Kroah-Hartman just a few minutes ago, starting the maintenance cycle for this new branch.
LLVM/Clang
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After a few days ago showing LLVM Clang 3.4 running very well on AMD's Kaveri APU, here are some benchmarks of GCC 4.8.2, the latest GCC 4.9 development snapshot, and LLVM Clang 3.4 from an Intel Core i5 "Haswell" system running Ubuntu 14.04 with the Linux 3.13 kernel.
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A group of developers remain hard at work on the LLVMLinux project to build the mainline Linux kernel on x86 and ARM with the Clang compiler.
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Thanks to Jakob's work on Sparcv9 ABI in Clang and recent changes to Sparc code generator, I am happy to announce that Clang can self host itself on Linux/Sparc64 and on FreeBSD/Sparc64.
Graphics Stack
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Rob Clark has landed a new shader compiler into his Freedreno Gallium3D open-source graphics driver for Qualcomm's Adreno A3xx hardware.
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AMD is doing another large and important open-source graphics driver code drop this morning. This morning AMD is publishing their VCE code that allows for hardware-based video encoding.
Since last year AMD has provided open-source UVD support for video decoding on modern Radeon GPUs. There still isn't any open-source UVD1 support (only UVD 2.0 and newer), but now AMD has turned its focus to open-source hardware-accelerated video encoding.
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The new compiler generates a dependency graph of instructions, including a few meta-instructions to handle PHI and preserve some extra information needed for register assignment, etc.
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Many people where worried about some Steam Machines using AMD graphics, I was too, but considering they are applying direct fixes for SteamOS as detailed below I don't think we will have to worry too much.
Benchmarks
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The latest Linux distribution benchmarks to share at Phoronix are a comparison of Manjaro Linux 0.8.8, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in its current development state, openSUSE 13.1, and Fedora 20. All tests were done from an Intel Core i5 4670 Haswell system to look at the current state of various Linux distributions when it comes to various areas of open-source performance.
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The latest kernel benchmarking that happened at Phoronix was testing every major Linux kernel release from Linux 3.3 through the latest stable Linux 3.13 release from an Intel Sandy Bridge system to see how the kernel performance has evolved during the hardware's lifetime for key subsystems.
Misc.
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Daniel Phillips, a lead Tux3 developer, wrote to the kernel mailing list on Monday and acknowledged that it's been a long time coming for Tux3... We covered Tux3 back in 2008 as the Tux2 successor that was never merged due to licensing issues and then it had been quite some time without any news on Tux3, until it was resurrected in early 2013.
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I reached out to Tip4Commit to find out just how many people were not collecting tips. One of its creators, Arsen Gasparyan, got back to me with some data. He shared with me that, as of last week, Tip4Commit supported 337 GitHub projects, for which 9,076 tips have been earned (a tip is earned when a pull request for a commit on a supported project is accepted), totaling about 3.34 ÃÆ (worth about $2,650 at today's Bitcoin exchange rate of $793.20). However, only 1.956 ÃÆ has been received by 67 users, meaning 1.384 ÃÆ, a little under $1,100 or about 40% of the value of all tips, has gone unclaimed.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Slopwatch: A Cause for Hope, the Hype is Dying
- For about a month we showed that becoming a slopfarm - for several weeks - resulted in utter failure and ruin for BetaNews
- The EFF Sided With the Team That Strangles Women and Tells Women to Kill Themselves
- They say that apathy and inaction are a form of a "stance"
- Exemplary List of Things That Are Not Artificial Intelligence or Even Intelligence
- The "age of AI" or "era of AI" or "AI revolution" mostly boils down to rebranding, just like "the cloud"
- GitHub Copilot Can Cause the Bankruptcy of GitHub to Come Sooner and GitHub to be Shut Down Just Like Skype
- Some publicly available information suggests that even for each paid subscriber for plagiarism (LLM 'coding') GitHub Copilot still loses more money than it makes
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- EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
- slides
- Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
- The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
- EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
- "The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025
- Microsoft - Like IBM - Does the "Relocation" Tricks (Start Over Elsewhere, Then Get Sacked by Microsoft)
- It is a "low blow" or a "dick move"
- After the Free Software Foundation's Campaign to Raise Money Let's See Campaigns to Finish Off Microsoft (Vista 11, GitHub etc.)
- Microsoft is in effect collapsing
- Your Publications Have No Major Impact Unless or Until You "Get Some Heat"
- we're on the right track
- Links 11/07/2025: Censorship Worsening, 3D Printing Success Stories, UK and France Unite Around Nukes
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Zorin OS and Scriptonite Updates
- Links for the day
- Links 11/07/2025: Hardware, Russia, and China
- Links for the day
- Links 11/07/2025: Intel Collapsing and Microsoft Resorts to Bribery to Push Slop Via Obligatory Education
- Links for the day
- "Nat [Friedman] and [the Serial Strangler From Microsoft] Were Always Exceptionally Close," Says Former Housemate and Colleague
- Now Alex (hiding behind another name when that suits him) not only attacks women but also people who merely report what he did to women
- New Letter From the European Patent Office Explains How the Office Plots to Grant Many Illegal Patents, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of 'Growth'
- Open letter to Mr Rowan (VP1) and Mr Aledo Lopez (COO)
- Abuse of Process
- 5RB is employing people who help violent men
- What Microsoft's Nat Friedman and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
- "Get in da car; No time to explain, loser"
- Microsoft and IBM Don't Have Much of a Future (They Mostly Pretend at This Point)
- IBM and Microsoft are in some ways alike but in many ways different
- It's Not Just Twitter (or X.com) That's Dying, Microsoft's Equivalent is Dying Also
- Unable to find a business model
- Wayland is Bad for the Planet
- If you use Wayland, it'll take you longer to accomplish tasks and you will consume more energy (or battery life)
- Legitimising Those Who Sabotage You
- Microsoft is a very malicious company
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 10, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, July 10, 2025
- On Microsoft Layoffs
- we might be looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs since 2023
- EPO Management Already Breaks Its Own Promise (Lie) on "Bringing Teams Together"
- This gut-punching move happened just 2 days ago
- Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Occupation of 2025 and "Old Man Yells At Soundcloud"
- Links for the day
- Our Lawsuits Against the 'Cancel Mob' (Ringleaders) Helped Reduce Anti-Free Software Online Abuse
- That's not to say that lawsuits are the best way to handle terrible people. But that can help.
- Tomorrow is the Last Day of the Fund-Raising Campaign of the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
- They will probably extend the date, as usual
- Fixing Patents in Europe, Little by Little (by Transparency and Reporting of Suppressed Facts)
- Tomorrow and throughout the weekend we shall focus some more on the EPO
- The Two Lies Microsoft is Telling in "the News" This Week (to Distract From Layoffs and Decreased Interest in Slop/Chaff)
- Microsoft is run by liars and frauds who SLAPP critics
- Tux Machines Already Destroyed SLAPPs
- Attacks on the mere publication of GNU/Linux news won't be tolerated
- PCLinuxOS is Available for Download Again
- PCLinuxOS is important to us also because its founder, back then the partner of Susan, helped create Tux Machines more than 21 years ago
- Links 10/07/2025: Microsoft E-mail 'Services' Collapse Again, "Yet Another Strava Privacy Leak"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 10/07/2025: Automating Git Repo Updates and Small Web 'Zine'
- Links for the day
- GNU/Linux Leftovers
- mostly Linux stuff
- Audiocasts/Shows: Going Linux, FLOSS Weekly, and RHEL Clones
- 3 new picks
- We Are Already Fighting - With Considerable Success - SLAPPs in the UK
- we intend to tell the full story
- Bullies With Pens and Papers (or Apple Macs With Templates)
- Not all barristers are evil, but there are perhaps "rotten apples"
- Slopwatch: webpronews.com, linuxsecurity.com, linuxjournal.com
- a pile of trash disguised as 'articles'
- Links 10/07/2025: Linda Yaccarino Divorces MElonazi Site, Wildfires Hit Syria
- Links for the day
- The History and the Policy of the EPO's Stance on Breastfeeding (Corporate Monopolies Versus Babies' Health)
- "The Case for Introducing a Breastfeeding Policy at the EPO"
- Gemini Links 10/07/2025: Inventing Chords and "Nightmare Boss"
- Links for the day
- Igor Ljubuncic Once Again Shows That for Technical Reasons Wayland Still Sucks, Performs Considerably Worse Than What Existed for Decades
- That is aside from compatibility factors and other crucial factors
- Links 10/07/2025: "Apple Vs The Law" and Twitter Became Full Nazi Bar
- Links for the day
- Unable to Find Anyone to Work as Their Media Lawyer, Brett Wilson LLP Will Continue Losing Female Staff
- What sort of sick person would wish to join Brett Wilson LLP to carry this baton?
- Microsoft-Sponsored Propaganda Site Has Removed False 'Hit Piece' About Dr. Stallman (With Fake and Misrepresented Imagery) But Only After 4 Years
- So they only removed that page some time around 2025, i.e. about 4 years after it had been published
- Always Check Your Inputs
- Garbage in, garbage out. Or wrong assumptions, wrong corollary.
- Dan Neidle Said That Tax Evasion Facilitator Mr Zahawi (Working to Silence Bloggers Through Brett Wilson LLP) Targeted Not Only Him (But The Others Kept Quiet)
- "Mr Neidle said after repelling Mr Zahawi he was contacted by bloggers and tweeters who had received similar threats. They deleted their work “and in most cases never commented publicly on anything again”."
- SLAPP Funding Transparency Urgently Needed in the UK and Elsewhere (in Practice, Not Just in Theory)
- Writing about crime - including Microsoft crime - is not a crime
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 09, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, July 09, 2025
- Elodie Bergot Still Doing Illegal Things at the EPO, Based on the Local Staff Committee Munich
- They keep taking away from the staff while compelling the staff to do illegal things