March 16, 2012 -- When running Linux file-system benchmarks at Phoronix it is most often a comparison of EXT4 vs. Btrfs, since they are the "hot" Linux file-systems at the moment. Sometimes others like ZFS, Reiser4, and XFS also join the party. In this article is a look at all of the Linux file-systems with install-time support under the forthcoming Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. When carrying out clean installations each time with changing out the root file-system and using the default mount options, ReiserFS, JFS, EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, Btrfs, and XFS are all being compared in this article.

March 02, 2012 -- It's that time of the Linux kernel development cycle again... Here are benchmarks of the EXT4 and Btrfs file-systems with the soon-to-be-released Linux 3.3 kernel.

February 27, 2012 -- It looks like the debacle concerning RC6 power-savings support for Intel Sandy Bridge hardware is finally behind us. Intel thinks everything is worked out and ready to be enabled upstream (again) with the next Linux 3.4 kernel cycle and Canonical has enabled RC6 by default in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Here are some tests showing the performance benefits and power-saving abilities of using the RC6 hardware feature on Sandy Bridge processors.

February 08, 2012 -- It is going on a year since showing how Unity, Compiz, GNOME Shell & KWin affect graphics/gaming performance, so here is an updated 2012 look. In this article are a variety of OpenGL benchmarks run under the current latest desktops as will be found in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS: Unity, Unity 2D, GNOME Shell, GNOME Classic, KDE Plasma, and Xfce. AMD and NVIDIA graphics were tested with both the latest closed and open-source drivers.

January 27, 2012 -- The leading open-source code compilers -- namely the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and LLVM/Clang -- now have maturing support for Intel's Sandy Bridge microarchitecture with further optimizations for the forthcoming Ivy Bridge successor. With the current and next-generation Intel support covered, open-source compiler developers have already moved onto beginning work for supporting Intel's Haswell microarchitecture that will not be launched until 2013.

January 23, 2012 -- For those that were interested by the CompuLab Trim-Slice, a desktop built around the ARM-based NVIDIA Tegra 2 platform, here are some more benchmarks. This time the numbers are looking at the performance of the dual-core ARM Cortex A9 system when using the Ubuntu 11.04, 11.10, and 12.04 packages.

January 13, 2012 -- The CompuLab Trim-Slice is quite an interesting dual-core ARM Tegra 2 device. This nettop/desktop-oriented system ships with Ubuntu 11.04 by default, but it is also well supported by Arch Linux. In this article are some tests of the dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 1.0GHz system running under Arch.

January 11, 2012 -- Following last week's release of the Linux 3.2 kernel, here is a round-up of Linux 3.2 kernel benchmarks. Also included are a new set of kernel benchmarks comparing the 3.2 kernel to older releases while running Intel's blazing fast Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition CPU.

December 29, 2011 -- Here's a quick look at running the LLVM/Clang compiler on the OMAP4460-based PandaBoard ES compared to the default GCC compiler.

December 15, 2011 -- It's been a while since last benchmarking NILFS2, a file-system that's been in the Linux kernel since 2.6.30, so in this article are some fresh NILFS2 benchmarks from the Linux 3.2 development kernel compared to the EXT4 and Btrfs file-systems.