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
- CISA Has a Microsoft Conflict of Interest Problem (CISA Cannot Achieve Its Goals, It Protects the Worst Culprit)
- people from Microsoft "speaking for" "Open Source" and for "security"
- [Video] Time to Acknowledge Debian Has a Real Problem and This Problem Needs to be Solved
- it would make sense to try to resolve conflicts and issues, not exacerbate these
- Daniel Pocock elected on ANZAC Day and anniversary of Easter Rising (FSFE Fellowship)
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Ulrike Uhlig & Debian, the $200,000 woman who quit
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
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- Microsoft Claims "Goodwill" Is an Asset Valued at $119,163,000,000, Cash Decreased From $34,704,000,000 to $19,634,000,000 and Total Liabilities Grew to $231,123,000,000
- Earnings Release FY24 Q3
- More Microsoft Cuts: Events Canceled, Real Sales Down Sharply
- So they will call (or rebrand) everything "AI" or "Azure" or "cloud" while adding revenues from Blizzard to pretend something is growing
- Links 25/04/2024: South Korean Military to Ban iPhone, Armenian Remembrance Day
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 25/04/2024: SFTP, VoIP, Streaming, Full-Content Web Feeds, and Gemini Thoughts
- Links for the day
- Audiocasts/Shows: FLOSS Weekly and mintCast
- the latest pair of episodes
- [Meme] Arvind Krishna's Business Machines
- He is harming Red Hat in a number of ways (he doesn't understand it) and Fedora users are running out of patience (many volunteers quit years ago)
- [Video] Debian's Newfound Love of Censorship Has Become a Threat to the Entire Internet
- SPI/Debian might end up with rotten tomatoes in the face
- Joerg (Ganneff) Jaspert, Dalbergschule Fulda & Debian Death threats
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- Amber Heard, Junior Female Developers & Debian Embezzlement
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- [Video] IBM's Poor Results Reinforce the Idea of Mass Layoffs on the Way (Just Like at Microsoft)
- it seems likely Red Hat layoffs are in the making
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 24, 2024
- IRC logs for Wednesday, April 24, 2024
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- Links 24/04/2024: Layoffs and Shutdowns at Microsoft, Apple Sales in China Have Collapsed
- Links for the day
- Sexism processing travel reimbursement
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- Girlfriends, Sex, Prostitution & Debian at DebConf22, Prizren, Kosovo
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- Microsoft is Shutting Down Offices and Studios (Microsoft Layoffs Every Month This Year, Media Barely Mentions These)
- Microsoft shutting down more offices (there have been layoffs every month this year)
- Balkan women & Debian sexism, WeBoob leaks
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- Martina Ferrari & Debian, DebConf room list: who sleeps with who?
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 24/04/2024: Advances in TikTok Ban, Microsoft Lacks Security Incentives (It Profits From Breaches)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 24/04/2024: People Returning to Gemlogs, Stateless Workstations
- Links for the day
- Meike Reichle & Debian Dating
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- Europe Won't be Safe From Russia Until the Last Windows PC is Turned Off (or Switched to BSDs and GNU/Linux)
- Lives are at stake
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 23, 2024
- IRC logs for Tuesday, April 23, 2024
- [Meme] EPO: Breaking the Law as a Business Model
- Total disregard for the EPO to sell more monopolies in Europe (to companies that are seldom European and in need of monopoly)
- The EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) on New Ways of Working (NWoW) and “Bringing Teams Together” (BTT)
- The latest publication from the Central Staff Committee (CSC)
- Volunteers wanted: Unknown Suspects team
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Debian trademark: where does the value come from?
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Detecting suspicious transactions in the Wikimedia grants process
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 23/04/2024: US Doubles Down on Patent Obviousness, North Korea Practices Nuclear Conflict
- Links for the day
- Stardust Nightclub Tragedy, Unlawful killing, Censorship & Debian Scapegoating
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gunnar Wolf & Debian Modern Slavery punishments
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- On DebConf and Debian 'Bedroom Nepotism' (Connected to Canonical, Red Hat, and Google)
- Why the public must know suppressed facts (which women themselves are voicing concerns about; some men muzzle them to save face)
- Several Years After Vista 11 Came Out Few People in Africa Use It, Its Relative Share Declines (People Delete It and Move to BSD/GNU/Linux?)
- These trends are worth discussing
- Canonical, Ubuntu & Debian DebConf19 Diversity Girls email
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- Links 23/04/2024: Escalations Around Poland, Microsoft Shares Dumped
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 23/04/2024: Offline PSP Media Player and OpenBSD on ThinkPad
- Links for the day
- Amaya Rodrigo Sastre, Holger Levsen & Debian DebConf6 fight
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- DebConf8: who slept with who? Rooming list leaked
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- Bruce Perens & Debian: swiping the Open Source trademark
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- Ean Schuessler & Debian SPI OSI trademark disputes
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- Windows in Sudan: From 99.15% to 2.12%
- With conflict in Sudan, plus the occasional escalation/s, buying a laptop with Vista 11 isn't a high priority
- Anatomy of a Cancel Mob Campaign
- how they go about
- [Meme] The 'Cancel Culture' and Its 'Hit List'
- organisers are being contacted by the 'cancel mob'
- Richard Stallman's Next Public Talk is on Friday, 17:30 in Córdoba (Spain), FSF Cannot Mention It
- Any attempt to marginalise founders isn't unprecedented as a strategy
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 22, 2024
- IRC logs for Monday, April 22, 2024
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- Don't trust me. Trust the voters.
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Chris Lamb & Debian demanded Ubuntu censor my blog
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- Ean Schuessler, Branden Robinson & Debian SPI accounting crisis
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
- William Lee Irwin III, Michael Schultheiss & Debian, Oracle, Russian kernel scandal
- Reprinted with permission from disguised.work