Software

Ubuntu's Unity Decision Affects 2D Performance Too

August 20, 2012 -- Last week I delivered OpenGL/3D benchmarks of Ubuntu 12.10 when comparing the performance of the default Unity desktop to the now-defunct Unity 2D environment. Canonical's decision to kill Unity 2D means that for those now forced to use the Compiz-based Unity may experience lower frame-rates, high power consumption with Unity-over-LLVMpipe, and other differences. Additional testing has shown how Unity is affecting the 2D graphics performance.

Intel Ivy Bridge: GCC 4.8 vs. LLVM/Clang 3.2 SVN

August 18, 2012 -- Kicking off the Linux benchmarks this weekend are some early numbers from the GCC 4.8 and LLVM/Clang 3.2 development compilers when running on Intel's latest-generation Core i7 "Ivy Bridge" processor. GCC 4.8 and LLVM/Clang 3.2 are still months away from being formally released, but this article provides a glimpse at how the open-source compiler battle is panning out.

Ubuntu's Unity Has Room To Improve Performance

August 17, 2012 -- Following yesterday's news that Ubuntu 12.10 will drop the Unity 2D desktop, I carried out some quick tests comparing the latest state of the Unity desktop with Compiz against the lightweight Unity 2D desktop that's now being removed. To not much surprise, the composited Unity desktop still has some performance shortcomings for OpenGL workloads compared to Unity 2D.

Running Wayland: It Works, But A Lot Of Work Remains

August 10, 2012 -- Following the news shared today that Ubuntu's delayed their Wayland System Compositor adoption from Ubuntu 12.10 to at least Ubuntu 13.04 there was the more positive news that there's an updated third-party spin of an Ubuntu derivative running Wayland. This article has some more information on that new "RebeccaBlack OS" release along with screenshots that provide a glimpse of where the Wayland adoption is at today.

Ubuntu Delays Wayland System Compositor

August 10, 2012 -- Ubuntu 12.10 will not be shipping with a Wayland-based system compositor as was once hoped for, but the experimental system compositor can be enabled from a PPA in a very primitive state.

VMware Fusion Stuns VirtualBox In CPU Tests

August 10, 2012 -- Aside from VMware virtualization smacking Oracle VirtualBox when it comes to the OpenGL support that's passed through to VM guests, VMware Fusion 4 also does a nice job at outperforming VirtualBox when it comes to computational-focused workloads.

VMware Virtualization With OpenGL Still Smacks Oracle VirtualBox

August 08, 2012 -- Earlier this year I said VMware's virtual GPU driver was running fast for Linux -- in comparison to Oracle's VM VirtualBox 3D guest acceleration support. This continues to be the case with VMware's OpenGL stack leading the way with superior support and performance. Recently I ran some desktop virtualization tests under VMware Fusion 4.1.3 and Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1.18 from the Retina MacBook Pro with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion host. Even with the OS X host, VMware's 3D support exposed to the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS virtualized guest was much faster.

AHCI vs. IDE Modes With A SATA 3.0 SSD On Linux

August 05, 2012 -- Days ago benchmarks were shared from OpenBenchmarking.org that compared AHCI and IDE modes under Linux when it came to the resulting disk performance. There was a fair amount of interest generated out of that so some AHCI vs. IDE mode comparisons from a Serial ATA 3.0 SSD on an Ubuntu Linux host were benchmarked at Phoronix.

Intel Ivy Bridge Is Okay On Linux Power Usage

July 31, 2012 -- With talk of a massive power regression in the recently released Linux 3.5 kernel, yesterday I began benchmarking some different systems with varying versions of the Linux kernel looking for any new kernel power regressions on different hardware.

Benchmarking GCC 4.2 Through GCC 4.8 On AMD & Intel Hardware

July 23, 2012 -- Here are benchmarks of all major GNU Compiler Collection releases from GCC 4.2.4 through the latest GCC 4.8 development build. Benchmarking was of the seven GCC compiler releases from an Intel Core i7 "Clarksfield" system and an AMD Opteron "Shanghai" workstation.
Latest Hardware Reviews
  1. Sumo Lounge Emperor
  2. Gallium3D Continues Improving OpenGL For Older Radeon GPUs
  3. 15-Way Open vs. Closed Source NVIDIA/AMD Linux GPU Comparison
  4. Nouveau vs. NVIDIA Linux Comparison Shows Shortcomings
Latest Software Articles
  1. GCC 4.8.0 vs. LLVM Clang 3.3 Compiler Performance
  2. Intel Linux OpenGL Driver Leading Over Apple OS X
  3. The Cost Of Ubuntu Disk Encryption
  4. Btrfs vs. EXT4 vs. XFS vs. F2FS On Linux 3.10
Latest Linux News
  1. Unity 8, Mir Made Progress This Week On Features
  2. LLVM Clang 3.3 RC2 Is Ready For Testing
  3. AMD RadeonSI Gallium3D Begins Simple CL Demos
  4. Intel Shows Off GNOME3-Based Tizen Shell
  5. Linux Desktop Security Could Be A Whole Lot Better
  6. KDE 4.11 Will Be The Last Major KDE4 Workspaces Feature Release
  7. New NVIDIA Linux Driver Supports The GeForce GTX 780
  8. Chrome 28 To Offer More Speed Improvements
  9. Digia Announces "Boot To Qt" Project
  10. X.Org Libraries Hit By Round Of Security Issues
  11. Wayland's Weston Gets Output Scaling Support
Latest Forum Talk
  1. GCC 4.8.0 vs. LLVM Clang 3.3 Compiler Performance
  2. AMD RadeonSI Gallium3D Begins Simple CL Demos
  3. Sun x4500 firmware
  4. KDE 4.11 Will Be The Last Major KDE4 Workspaces...
  5. Could the forum help improve the quality of...
  6. Linux Desktop Security Could Be A Whole Lot Better
  1. Computers
  2. Display Drivers
  3. Graphics Cards
  4. Motherboards
  5. Peripherals
  6. Processors
  7. Software
  8. Operating Systems
  9. All Articles
  1. Linux Benchmarking
  2. OpenBenchmarking.org
  3. Phoronix Test Suite