May 21, 2008 -- While there aren't many workstation OpenGL benchmarks available for Linux, the leading option is SPECViewPerf, which is developed by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. SPECViewPerf has been around for years and is made up of various production-oriented tests from popular software programs in the real world. Among the programs these tests are based upon include 3DS Max, Maya, SolidWorks, and EnSight. The latest version of SPECViewPerf -- version 10.0 -- first shipped for Windows a year ago, but it wasn't until this morning that the Linux/UNIX code was made available.

May 17, 2008 -- With the Phoronix Test Suite 1.0 codename being Trondheim, which is a city in Norway, and today being Constitution Day in Norway, what better way to celebrate than to push out a new release! Phoronix Test Suite 0.7.0 contains over 40 major changes since the previous release just a week ago. Some of the top changes in this release include advanced merging capabilities of test results, several new test profiles, and support for abstract result types.

May 10, 2008 -- For those of you interested in trying out new open-source software this weekend, Phoronix Test Suite 0.6.0 has been released with an arsenal of new features for this Linux benchmarking platform. There are new and updated profiles with this release, new test suites, support for backing up downloaded tests, and much more. Since Phoronix Test Suite 0.5.0 are 48 official changes in the past week, which reinforces our plans on having a 1.0 release ready by early June.

May 09, 2008 -- In our article earlier this week looking at the status of X.Org 7.4, one of the features originally planned for integration in this X Server release was MPX, or Multi-Pointer X. While it's been in development for over two years and has been at an experimental state, it's been featured in popular YouTube videos as this is the technology on Linux that allows multiple keyboards and mice to be attached to a single system and MPX allows these input devices to function independently on the same windowing system. For those of you interested in this desktop technology, it's been announced that MPX will finally be merged into the mainline X.Org tree later this month.

May 04, 2008 -- If all goes according to plan, X.Org 7.4 will finally be released this month. This release isn't quite as elaborate as X.Org 7.3, which introduced input hot-plugging, EXA enhancements, and RandR 1.2 to just name a few features, but X.Org 7.4 is another update better enhancing this X server. In this article, we are presenting a release overview of the features to be found in X.Org 7.4, what's been delayed, and how this release is panning out.

May 01, 2008 -- A week ago Phoronix Test Suite 0.4.0 was released and today Phoronix Test Suite 0.5.0 has outdone that. This release of the Phoronix Test Suite incorporates more than 40 major changes to this open-source Linux benchmarking platform! Among the changes are new test profiles, various clean up work, sensor monitoring support, and an improved PTS Results Viewer. Development of the Phoronix Test Suite is coming along quite nicely and by early June, the public should have its hands on version 1.0.

April 29, 2008 -- Version 0.5 of the Phoronix Test Suite will be released later this week and already it has over 40 changes in this forthcoming release! There are quite a number of new profiles and features with this release, but one interesting feature that has just begun to evolve is the system sensor monitoring support. Now when tests are running within the Phoronix Test Suite, you can opt to have the Phoronix Test Suite keep track of system sensors -- whether it be your CPU/system temperature, one of the voltage rails, or even your battery discharge rate -- and upon the tests being completed the average sensor results are shown as well as a line graph of each sensor while the test(s) were running.

April 24, 2008 -- Following last week's release of Phoronix Test Suite 0.3.0 and the 0.3.1 hot-fix, a surprising amount of changes have wound up in this week's development release known as version 0.4.0. In fact, there are 21 major changes in this new release not counting general development work and minor bug fixes. Among the changes are new test profiles, a number of new PTS options, PTS External Dependencies support for new Linux distributions, reworking how results are saved, and the graphs are now rendered locally when saving the results.

April 18, 2008 -- Less than two weeks ago Phoronix Test Suite 0.2.0 was released, which featured a number of profile updates, improved Linux hardware detection, and incorporating other feedback voiced by the initial users of this Linux benchmarking suite. Last Saturday version 0.2.1 was then released with initial support for PTS External Dependencies, a GLMark profile, GtkPerf profile, FRAC Benchmark profile, and other fixes. Continuing in an expedited development process, Phoronix Test Suite 0.3.0 has been released this morning with a number of major changes, including new test profiles and architectural improvements.

April 18, 2008 -- Next to drivers for graphics cards and (Atheros and Broadcom) wireless chipsets, the Creative Labs X-Fi series is one of the most complained about pieces of hardware for its Linux support or there the lack of. The Creative X-Fi sound card series is a few years old, but it wasn't until a few months ago that open and closed-source drivers started coming about for this hardware. However, this sound card has still been left in a sorry state, but this week Creative Labs has finally pushed out another Sound Blaster X-Fi Linux beta driver. But does this driver correct their wrong doings from the past?