Kernel (Linux) News: A Week's News in a Nutshell
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-12 08:25:09 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-12 08:25:09 UTC
Linux
The Imaging Source has announced the immediate availability of open source Linux support for all of its cameras.
If you are using any of the versions released until now in the Linux kernel 3.12.x branch, you should consider an update to this build. Keep in mind that this is an LTS release, which means that it's going to be around for a very long time. If you feel adventurous, you can ditch this LTS branch and go for the latest 3.14 version.
This is not the big update that everyone has been waiting for, but at least there are a few things that will definitely catch your eye. For example, support has been added for systemd and upstart to control the Hamachi service, the network list is now immediately updated after going online or offline in a network, and the update interval count is now reset after each manual update.
File Systems
Linux 3.15
A second Git pull request has been made for the ACPI and power management code within the kernel for Linux 3.15.
Earlier in April I wrote about link-time optimization support for the kernel nearing reality. LTO support for the Linux kernel has been in the works since 2012 but only with Linux 3.15 will it become a mainline possibility. Link-Time Optimizations via GCC and other compilers allow for various compile-time optimizations to be applied across the binary as a whole. Enabling link-time optimizations can yield some significant performance improvements but results in much slower compile times and with large programs can cause problems due to the size of optimizing the complete binary at once.
Graphics Stack
With OpenArena the frame-rate went from just 8 FPS on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to 19 FPS when using the Linux 3.14 kernel. Linux 3.14 allows for the R3 Graphics to re-clock to their highest performance state compared to Linux 3.13 where DPM isn't enabled by default for GCN GPUs. When going to Mesa 10.2-devel that will be officially released in about one month, the frame-rate rose to 25 FPS... That's over a three-fold performance improvement when pulling in the bleeding edge latest code.
Wayland
Intel developers continue experimenting with a Resize and Rotate protocol extension for Wayland's Weston compositor that was originally designed for the X.Org Server.
Intel
The "Cherryview" Atom processors feature "Gen8" graphics (Broadwell) capabilities, there's three display pipes, three HDMI/DisplayPort/EmbeddedDisplayPort ports, two MIPI DSI display ports, and VGA support has been dropped from Cherryview.
AMD
Alex Deucher sent out a set of three patches today to update the microcode used by the AMD "Southern Islands" graphics processors.
As expected AMD unveiled the Radeon R9 295X graphics card this morning as the "world's fastest" for those with $1500 USD to spare.
After much information being made public in March concerning AMD's AM1 platform that delivers socketed APUs for low-cost desktop systems, the first of these new socketed APUs are shipping today under the restored Athlon and Sempron branding. We've been fortunate enough to have one of the new Athlon AM1 APUs at Phoronix for a few days of testing.
Gallium3D
The Gallium3D HUD has gain some new reporting capabilities for the Radeon Gallium3D R600 and RadeonSI drivers.
X.Org
Keith wrote on the mailing list, "With this, the 1.16 merge window comes to a close. Thanks to everyone who contributed a huge pile of fixes and new features! We're a week behind schedule; Kristian was a bit late with Xwayland, and that included a driver-visible API change that needed fixing (this appears to have been my fault originally)."
NVIDIA
This latest driver update arrives only a day after the previous Beta release, which caused quite a stir because it featured the option to overclock the video card. It may not seem like much but, in fact, this is actually great progress for the NVIDIA drivers.
Benchmarks
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Like Microsoft and IBM, the 'Alicante Mafia'-Governed EPO Does PIPs Nowadays (at the EPO, It's "Professional Incompetence Procedure")
- So "PIPs" are definitely in the EPO and we saw letters sent to staff
- Time for Change, More New Articles, Less Curation
- The oligarchy wants to gut the real press and replace media with slop and social control media (or social control media with slop in it, i.e. their own voices, mechanised)
- Almost 1,600 EPO Employees Went on Strike Last Week
- There is another strike coming 2.5 weeks from now
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- You Know Microsoft's "Value" is 100% Fictional When in One Single "Trading" Day in Wall Street It Loses THREE TIMES More in "Value" Than It Was 'Worth' in 2009
- Microsoft does not behave like a company riding trillions but like a company that struggles with payroll
- Better Outcomes When Facing the Discomfort of Conflict
- Don't take the easy way out when the "hard way" is the right way and it can result in positive revelations
- Leaving the United States 3 Years Ago Was the Best Decision We Made
- A lot of stuff is being consolidated
- BillBC (BBC) Covered Up Pedophilia, Now It's Covering Up for Its Sponsor Bill Gates by Reprinting His Lies, Which His Own Wife Disputes
- Is Bill Gates having orgies (group sex)?
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- Explaining the Letter From JUDGE SYKES FRIXOU, Threatening Me Around the Time GNOME's Nat Friedman Lost His CEO Job at Microsoft GitHub and His Best Friend Got Arrested for Strangulation
- this letter (with annotation) is critical
- Linuxiac Not Rehabilitated, It's Still Full of LLM Slop (Part of a Trend)
- The Web as a resource/source of information is perishing
- "Sponsored by Azul" to Write Fake 'Article' About Azul, Quoting Azul Itself
- The "journalism" industry [sic] became so utterly corrupt
- JuristGate is for sale: three billion Swiss francs for a domain name
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 05/02/2026: Coercion, Antibiotics, and LVDT Project
- Links for the day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, February 04, 2026
- Links 04/02/2026: Extreme Malice in Microsoft's Visual Studio Code on GNU/Linux, More Hey Hi (AI) Chaos
- Links for the day
- Sexism & GNOME: shaming men, hiding women, Sonny Piers update
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 04/02/2026: Humanity and Animality, systemd (Controlled by Amutable, a Proxy of Microsoft) Moves on to "Extinguish" Phase
- Links for the day
- Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Used to be Widely Used in Geminispace, Now It's Down to Just 0.2% of the Whole
- Let's Encrypt is not your friend
- What IBM Does Is Clearly Illegal in the US: Tying Severance Packages to NDAs (Non-Disparagement Agreement/Clause)
- The NDAs make things worse; they keep people isolated and silent
- Microsoft's Giant Snowball of Layoffs and PIPs (in 2026)
- They would delay until March or April if they wanted to, but then we can expect numbers exceeding 10,000 layoffs (Microsoft always low-balls the real figure/s)
- Mozilla Turned Firefox Into Shovelware, Adding 'Kill Switch' for Slop Still Means Mozilla is Participating in a Pyramid Scheme, Plagiarism, Grifting
- Mozilla is still a slop pusher
- Links 04/02/2026: "Laws of Succession" and Microsoft's VS Code as Code-Stealing Malware
- Links for the day
- Phoronix Swims With the Real Trolls, People Who Fancy Proprietary Software and Back Doors
- If Larabel begins to actively participate in provocation with the "Microsoft GitHub fans club", what does this tell us about Phoronix?
- They Know Microsoft Layoffs Are About to Hit Them Hard
- The gaming division at Microsoft is a complete catastrophe, lots of money (debt) down the drain [...] Buying Activision was all about misleading shareholders or hiding the deep trouble/problems XBox was having
- Red Hat is Not a Linux Company, It's IBM's Ponzi Scheme Enabler
- Had we still been stuck in 2021, perhaps IBM would plaster "NFT" or "metaverse" all over RedHat.com
- Keep Grinding
- "Don't let the bastards grind you down"
- Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part III - Who's Going to Pay for the EPO's Corruption? (Aside From European Citizens)
- Some people inside the EPO reached out to us
- "Investors Are Concerned About an AI Bubble" (That GAFAM and IBM Ride)
- A few decades from now IBM will only be remembered in the same sense many so-called 'AI' companies will be remembered
- EPO Staff Union: "Very High Strike Participation on Friday 30 January", Another Strike Starts 19 Days From Now
- EPO management in a bit of a panic
- Censorship/Free Speech and Social Control Media
- It's important to have a grasp of how contemporary censorship works and how to tackle it
- Google News as Slop Booster
- this is what Google links to
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 03, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, February 03, 2026
- Gemini Links 04/02/2026: "Raspberry Pi Relaxes the Rules for Its RP2040 Hacking Challenge" and "Long Web Society"
- Links for the day
- IBM Falls by Over 10%
- a recipe for disasters like accounting fraud
- Links 03/02/2026: Windows Copies GNU/Linux, Windows TCO Shown Again
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 03/02/2026: Alhena Turns One, Slop Rejected, and Max Roy Carrouges Recalled
- Links for the day
- How to Identify Demonisation or Dehumanisation Tactics Against Interesting Figures or Luminaries in Free Software
- Rather than in general or generally in technology
- We Should Learn From Bulgaria
- Why can't European companies and government recognise and react to a threat (when they see one)?
- Dr. Andy Farnell on Why and How European Authorities Can Adopt Free Software, Parenting in the Age of Digital Abundance
- Will Europe use technology that Europe controls (not the hegemon), for a change?
- Canonical: Ubuntu is GAFAM (US), We're Resellers of American Proprietary Software
- They want people to pay for a licence
- Seems Like IBM Trolls Use Chatbots to Vandalise Platform That Discusses IBM's Secret Layoffs, Forever Layoffs
- Not for the first time either
- You Know Your Company is Dead or Basically a Pyramid Scheme When Jim Cramer Keeps Promoting Its Stock
- How much does IBM pay for "puff pieces" or "fluff" about QC?
- Red Hat (Under IBM) Works for Microsoft (Proprietary Software) and Slop
- Yesterday Red Hat's official site, redhat.com, published exactly 5 new blog posts
- IBM is Dying (More Layoffs), Red Hat Will Continue to Suffer From the Acquisition
- Financial engineering
- Colombia Adopting GNU/Linux Even Faster (at Microsoft's and Apple's Expense)
- Do politics play any role in this?
- An Effort to Tackle Slavery in 'Open Source' Clothing
- "a civil rights lawsuit to examine the concerns of censored developers in the free, open source software ecosystem"
- $15 billion lawsuit: Ubuntu, Google & Debian crowdfunding campaign launch
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part II - Why We Need to Expose the SRA to More Daylight, Public Scrutiny
- SRA is neither effective nor regulated
- Links 03/02/2026: "Distraction is a Sin" and Fake "Encryption" (Surveillance With Good Marketing)
- Links for the day
- 400-Page US Federal Court Against Abuses by Google, Microsoft and Front Groups That Abuse Volunteers for American Corporations
- There are 386 pages in total (in the US claim)
- Corporate Influence Never Impacted Us
- There's no reason to assume we'll ever "sell out"
- Growth of GNU/Linux in Cuba
- Right now a lot of the world drafts or already implements a GAFAM exit plan
- A Day After EPO Strikes an Escalation to Heads of Delegations to the Administrative Council
- They rely on the European media playing along, helping them to hide major blunders, even crimes
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 02, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, February 02, 2026
- Gemini Links 03/02/2026: Stargazing, Development Boards, and Tcl/Tk Slop
- Links for the day
