Kernel News: Linux 3.14 RC6, MOOC, ARM Support in Xen and More
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-13 20:08:41 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-13 20:08:41 UTC
Kernel Level
While it's late into the Linux 3.14 kernel development cycle, a patch that was introduced in Linux 3.13 with an aim of improving open-source graphics driver performance for TTM-based drivers is now being reverted since for some situations it instead decreased the performance.
The first Arduino-certified product to come out of Intel’s embedded systems division, is the Galileo a sign of things to come or a white elephant?
-
Red Hat is a relative late-comer to the dynamic patching party. Oracle has been in the space the longest, thanks to its 2011 acquisition of dynamic-kernel patching vendor Ksplice.
He has worked on the Linux kernel and userland for more than 20 years, in areas including KVM, the kernel-based virtual machine, high speed networking, Linux/ia64, Linux/m68k, the system libraries (glibc) and high-end NUMA systems.
-
For users of the BFS scheduler patches to the kernel, they have been updated this week for the Linux 3.13 kernel.
Con Kolivas continues maintaining his Brain Fuck Scheduler patch-set outside of the Linux kernel with no ambitions to mainline the alternative CPU scheduler. BFS 0.446 was released this week and with this release comes support for the now-stable Linux 3.13 kernel.
-
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) are all the rage as conventional computing platforms have taken up the challenge of network routing and management (see “What's The Difference Between SDN and NFV”). The trend is to integrate monolithic, vertically integrated hardware like gateways and routers into a single, virtualized, hardware platform.
-
On a related note, the LLVM Linux project is also seeking GSoC attention. Developers are still hard at work on making the upstream Linux kernel compatible with building under LLVM/Clang rather than just GCC. Much progress has been made in being able to build the Linux kernel with Clang but there's still outstanding patches, etc.
Education
-
The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux and collaborative development, today announced it is building a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) program with edX, the nonprofit online learning platform launched in 2012 by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). More than 31 universities have partnered with edX and nearly two million people have accessed its courses online since it launched just 18 months ago.
Xen/ARM
Xen 4.4 provides stable ARM support, improved libvirt support for libxl, a new scalable event channel interface, and many other changes. I've already written at length before about the big improvements to Xen 4.4 within Xen 4.4 Is On Approach With Many Features and Xen 4.4 Will Be Riding High With New Features.
Graphics Stack
-
Other changes for today's NVIDIA 334.21 Linux driver update include a NVIDIA kernel module security fix for a userspace pointer dereference, OpenGL bug-fixes, support for GPUs with VDPAU feature set E, improved application profile support, improved performance of OpenGL applications when used in conjunction with the X driver's composition pipeline, NVIDIA Settings control panel updates, and other fixes.
-
Last week we talked about Broadcom finally open-sourcing their VideoCore IV 3D Graphics Stack and it is indeed the real McCoy, but the $10,000 Quake III bounty has yet to be claimed for getting it to work on the Raspberry Pi.
-
VDPAU Feature Set E is the latest revision of NVIDIA's PureVideo hardware that's found in the brand new Maxwell graphics processors. With the GeForce GTX 750 series support for VDPAU Feature Set E, there is support for H.264 decoding up to 4096 x 4096 and MPEG-1/MPEG-2 streams up to 4080 x 4080. These new GPUs also support enhanced error concealment when dealing with the decoding of corrupted video streams.
Benchmarks
The ASUS Zenbook UX301LA-DH71T is a Haswell-based Intel ultrabook that I have found to be quite interesting and will be carrying out a large number of Linux tests (and Windows 8.1 vs. Linux benchmarks) from this laptop that sports Intel Iris Graphics 5100, dual SSDs, and other impressive features.
For any Linux laptop users or those concerned about their data's safety on production systems, I highly recommend utilizing disk encryption for safeguarding the data. However, what's the performance impact like these days? In this article with the current development snapshot of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on a modern Intel ultrabook we're looking at the impact (including CPU utilization) of using an eCryptfs-based home directory encryption and LUKS-based full-disk encryption on Ubuntu Linux.
-
For those curious about the performance of Intel's "Quark" x86 SoC for very low-power applications, including wearable devices, here's some benchmarks of Debian on their Galileo development board.
-
...in this article we are benchmarking the AMD Catalyst and NVIDIA binary drivers on Ubuntu Linux.
-
For this article we benchmarked Ubuntu 14.04 in its current development state and compared it to the Ubuntu releases going back three years to Ubuntu 11.10.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- GNU/Linux at 4% "Market Share" (Even According to Steam Survey)
- Another milestone
- Ahead of Mass Layoffs Microsoft Tries to Rebrand or Redefine XBox (Because the XBox is Tentatively Dead)
- 2026 will be the last year of XBox in all likelihood
- Richard Stallman (RMS) Announces His Georgia Talk 2.5 Weeks in Advance
- A lot earlier than usual
-
- Gemini Links 06/01/2026: Collective Responsibility, Pico2DVI, and TV Detox
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Loves Freedom, Democracy... and Linux? No, Microsoft Laying Off Because "Microsoft Loves Linux" Was Failed Posturing, Its Former Staff Moves to GNU/Linux
- "What are the running totals for IBM and Microsoft layoffs?"
- Mozilla's Assisted Suicide, Assisted by GNOME
- Firefox is meant to get better all the time, but instead it gets worse
- Links 06/01/2026: Neglect of the Elderly, Abandonment of International Laws
- Links for the day
- Links 06/01/2026: More Reports Point to Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Later This Month), Greenland/Denmark Cautions the Dictator Who Illegally Invaded Venezuela
- Links for the day
- Internet Policy/Net Reality: You Must Never Ever Rely on Google (no "S.E.O." Either)
- Stack Overflow is dying
- Dr. Andy Farnell on Technology That Harms People (and Lack of Regulation Which is Needed to Address This Problem)
- Dr. Farnell's article is long but well worth reading
- GNU/Linux Rising to 5% in Cameroon and It's Hardly the Exception
- "AI" is just a smokescreen as losses pile up
- Rumours: Microsoft to Lay Off 12,500-25,000 Workers Soon (Tentatively Wednesday, 15 Days From Now)
- "Layoffs are coming third full week of Jan. Likely 21st but these things can move around a bit based on last minute developments."
- EPO People Power - Part XXVI - European Media Has Become Part of the Problem
- it is as clear as daylight that Cocainegate is real
- IBM 2026 "Organizational Change/s" Means Layoffs Resume Soon, Some Claim "Forever Layoffs."
- It's about "narrative control"
- Microsoft Layoffs in January 2026
- Get ready
- Google Still Boosting Slopfarms
- Slopfarms will probably all perish as soon as Google News quits sending them visitors
- Links 06/01/2026: Cryptocurrency Scam Emails and Greenland's Fear of Getting 'Venezuelad'
- Links for the day
- Links 06/01/2026: DIY Projects and Inertial Music
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, January 05, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, January 05, 2026
- To The Register MS, ARM Means Microsoft Windows (Follow the Money)
- the Free software community can campaign and run sites (like the one below), but it cannot afford to bribe so-called 'news' sites like Microsoft and its OEMs do
- IBM's CEO Makes No Sense
- "IBM CEO Aravind Krishna on what’s really driving tech layoffs"
- Links 05/01/2026: Tensions in Korea, Ukrainians See "Double Standard" in a US Russia-Style Invasion
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 05/01/2026: Farewell to CBS Reality, Being On-Call, Digital Ad Spendings
- Links for the day
- Remember That Nobel Prizes Are All Named After the Inventor of Explosives (Even a "Nobel Prize for Peace")
- These rewards are only as valuable as the reputation they earn for themselves
- Baidu and Yandex Have Overtaken Microsoft in Asia
- how about all the Bing layoffs?
- Googlebombing for Bill Epsteingate
- Maybe the slopfarms too can help him cover up
- Of Course GNU/Linux Has Reached All-Time High in Africa in 2026
- Africa will, on average, gravitate towards Free software or whatever costs less
- From GNU/Linux Boosting to Slop-Boosting Career
- It is sad to see someone who devoted many years of his life producing GNU/Linux stories stooping down to this "AI" boot-licking
- IBM Buys, Then Disposes/Sacks, the Staff (That It Paid For)
- Any money gained is spent buying some more companies to add/join up their revenue, even if the debt surges and there's little integration going on (misfits absorbed)
- Time for Microsoft to Rebrand to Fit the Vapourware (Ponzi Scheme)
- something between Meta and Alphabet
- Links 05/01/2026: Slop Ruining Children's Minds, "Complicity of the Press in US Violence"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft's Windows Falls Below 20% in the UK
- After a lot of years of advocacy and hard work
- The Real GNU Anniversary (Not Manifesto or Announcement) is Today
- the development, not the manifesto
- GNU/Linux Usage Said to Have Doubled in Oceania
- it's hard to discount or dismiss Oceania as a bunch of "coconut islands"
- There's No Such Thing as "AI Godfather", Stop Repeating This Pure Nonsense!
- Infantile or corruptible media that plays along with slop or uses slop will perish
- Gemini Links 05/01/2026: "Poverty and Hunger", "Entrepreneurial Family", "Abandoning Obsidian for Logseq"
- Links for the day
- Links 05/01/2026: A Shrinking Canadian Economy, Brigitte Bardot's Environmentalism Recalled, Unredacted Epstein Files
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Allegedly Uses Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) to Hide the Massive Scale of Company-Wide Layoffs
- Just like IBM; they meanwhile talk a bunch of nonsense about "AI" to distract from their commercial calamity
- Battles Are Won in the Court of Public Opinion
- Many "systems" rely on the mere perception or appearance of legitimacy
- No, Writing Isn't in Decline, Some of the Large and Centralised Platforms Are
- Slop isn't really competition, just a passing fad and pure noise
- GNU/Linux Share in Mongolia More Than Doubles
- they probably lack any genuine excitement for "hey hi PCs"
- Whistleblowing is About Understanding Boundaries and Risks
- The bottom line is, people typically find out the truth at the end
- EPO People Power - Part XXV - While EPO Managers Snort Cocaine the Staff Compiles 'Insurance Files' to Expose EPO Corruption
- In this increasingly authoritarian world we need more whistleblowers
- "The European Patent Reform" That Represents a Gross Violation of Laws, Constitutions, and Conventions (in Order to Make the Rich Even Richer, Mostly Outside Europe)
- How far and how long will EPO corruption go?
- The Reputation Issue Is Not Our Fault
- Trying to squash words (and people) merely diverts more attention to them
- GNU/Linux Distribution "Ultimate Edition" Fixes Its Web Site (Apparently Compromised Months Ago)
- they dealt with the issue before media shame and a catastrophe of trust
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, January 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, January 04, 2026
- Gemini Links 04/01/2026: 64-bit Addressing and 39th Chaos Communication Congress
- Links for the day
- Windows Was Always the Punchline
- What did we count to calculate taxes?
- GNU/Linux Surges to About 4% in Peru This Year
- one of the poorest counties in America
- This Year Our Adoption of IRC Turns 18
- We have used IRC for this site since 2008
- The Doors Are Closing, Windows Closing Too
- Microsoft wants more vendor lock-in, but at risk that this desire will simply alienate and drive away many users
- The FSF's Program Manager, Dr. Miriam Sabrina Bastian, Left in October to Lead Climate School
- We are not sure why Miriam Bastian decided to leave the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
- Outline of Slop, LLMs, IBM, and Things to Come
- This coming week and weekend will be very productive irrespective of how much "news" gets published by other sites
- Links 04/01/2026: War Without Borders, "Large Hadron Collider Being Shut Down"
- Links for the day
- Links 04/01/2026: US Imperialism in Greenland and Venezuela, "Climate Protesters Face Greater Risk of Crackdown Amid Rising Authoritarianism"
- Links for the day
- 2026 Should be the Year We All Stop Saying "AI" and Call Things What They Really Are
- Don't give anyone the satisfaction of this misguided belief there's any intelligence there
- Ponzi Schemes Are Useful (to Corrupt CEOs)
- Pathetic, corruptible so-called 'media' is bagging bribes to perpetuate the lies about "AI" (slop)
- GNU/Linux at All-Time High in Algeria
- In 2026 it hit a new all-time high
- Online Mobbing (and Worse) Disguised as 'Free Speech'
- People who say they believe in "free speech" have been trying hard to silence RMS and squash the FSF
- A 'Cancer That Attaches Itself' to Bulgaria?
- "Cancer" is what Microsoft called GNU/Linux
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 03, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, January 03, 2026
- Body-Shaming Using Fakes
- a lot of the people who casually claim "defamation" are themselves defaming loads of people every day
- GNU/Linux "Market Share" in Switzerland More Than Doubled Last Year, Based on statCounter
- GNU/Linux continues its considerable growth
- EPO People Power - Part XXIV - Today or Tomorrow You Should Write to National Representatives (Delegates) at the EPO in Your Country
- Keep up the pressure!
- Red Hat and IBM Layoffs, Staff Kept Quiet About it, WARN Act Skirted/WARN Notices Avoided
- What a terrible company to be in
- XBox Layoffs Imminent, More Appalling Sales Figures Published
- Expect many layoffs in the gaming division