Windows 10, PS4, C4 & Systemd News Kicked Off 2015
During January on Phoronix yours truly wrote 274 original news articles and 26 featured-length articles/reviews. Below is a look at the most viewed content on Phoronix over January. First though, if you don't already, be sure to follow Phoronix by Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. To help support the Phoronix Linux hardware testing work and all of the content I write while working 100+ hour weeks on Phoronix Media, consider helping out by subscribing to Phoronix Premium or making a PayPal tip. Thanks for your support over the past 11 years of being the leading Linux hardware destination!
The most viewed January 2015 open-source / Linux news was:
PlayStation 4 System Compiler Support Landing In LLVM
Support for Sony's PlayStation 4 game console code generation is landing within LLVM's open-source compiler infrastructure.
Does VirtualBox VM Have Much A Future Left?
It's been a long time since last hearing of any major innovations or improvements to VirtualBox, the VM software managed by Oracle since their acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Is there any hope left for a revitalized VirtualBox?
Windows 10 To Be A Free Upgrade: What Linux Users Need To Know
I watched Microsoft's Windows 10 press event today not for looking toward switching and using the Windows 8 successor but rather to see what's coming down their consumer pipeline for competition to Linux and Android.
C4 Engine Drops Linux Support, Calls It "Frankenstein OS"
Version 4.2 of the cross-platform C4 Game Engine was released today. The big change of C4 Engine 4.2 is that it gets rid of Linux support after its lead developer has had a very unhappy and difficult experience with Linux.
Why Google Chrome Switched To The Clang Compiler On Linux
Since a few months back Google switched from GCC to Clang for compiling their production builds of the Chrome web-browser on Linux. A Google developer has now shed some light on the switch with backing up their own reasons for switching to Clang.
Linux "GHOST" Vulnerability Hits Glibc Systems
The latest high-profile security vulnerability affecting Linux systems us within Glibc, the GNU C Library.
LibreOffice 4.4 Is Coming Soon With New Features
The release plan puts the LibreOffice 4.4.0 as being just days away, but what features are in store for this open-source office suite? Let's take a brief look.
Systemd Gains IP Forwarding, IP Masquerading & Basic Firewall Controls
The systemd project is off to a quick start in 2015 with already seeing over 200 commits (granted, in 2015 systemd development skyrocketed with nearly 5,000 commits). With the newest work that's landed, the networkd component to systemd has been improved with new features.
CoreOS Moves From Btrfs To EXT4 + OverlayFS
CoreOS developers have had enough issues with the Btrfs file-system that they've decided to move from using the Btrfs file-system to instead use EXT4 plus OverlayFS.
Laying To Rest That Odd Linux Kernel Regression
Former Red Hat employee Dave Jones has provided some closure to that Linux 3.18 kernel bug that was initially viewed as a "worrisome regression" and turned out to be very difficult to track with no official fix within the mainline Linux kernel.
The top featured articles meanwhile were:
Intel Broadwell HD Graphics 5500: Windows 8.1 vs. Linux
Linux graphics tests of Intel's Broadwell hardware are finally here! Going back to November of 2013 is when Intel began putting out open-source Broadwell HD Graphics code. Since the initial Broadwell code drop, I've written dozens of articles to date covering the Linux kernel work, Mesa DRI OpenGL driver progress, Beignet OpenCL compute support, and other key Linux components work on Intel Broadwell support. A few days ago I received the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon with Core i7 Broadwell CPU to finally see how the Linux support has panned out for this next-generation line-up succeeding Haswell.
Unreal Engine 4 Linux Tests With AMD & NVIDIA Graphics Drivers
This week there was a 22-way graphics card test of Metro Redux on Linux using GeForce and Radeon hardware with the latest AMD and NVIDIA proprietary drivers. Today the newest Linux gaming test candidate to look at is the AMD/NVIDIA Linux performance with the latest Unreal Engine 4 demos. In this article is a look at the UE4 Linux performance on AMD and NVIDIA graphics hardware running with Ubuntu.
AMD Catalyst Linux OpenGL Driver Now Faster Than Windows Driver In Some Tests
Earlier this week I showed benchmarks of AMD's incredible year for their open-source Linux driver and how the open-source Radeon Gallium3D driver moved closer to performance parity with Catalyst. One of the lingering questions though is how does the Catalyst 14.12 Omega Linux driver from December compare to the latest Catalyst Windows driver? Here's some benchmarks looking at the latest open and closed-source drivers on Linux compared to the latest Catalyst Windows release.
22-Way AMD+NVIDIA Graphics Card Tests With Metro Redux On Steam For Linux
A few days back I wrote about being able to finally get the Metro Redux game benchmarks running in an automated manner under Linux to the point that we're now able to test it with the Phoronix Test Suite. With Metro 2033 Redux and Metro Last Light Redux now running well for our testing purposes, I've carried out performance tests of these two games with twenty-two AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards on Linux. Besides looking at the normal FPS result there's also frame latency metrics, power consumption data for each of these graphics cards, performance-per-Watt metrics, and GPU thermal results. If you're wondering what graphics card works best for your needs for OpenGL 4.x Linux gaming, here's an interesting look with the Metro Redux titles that premiered on Steam for Linux back in December.
AMD FX-8320E Performance On Linux
Back in September AMD announced new FX CPUs that included the FX-8370, FX-8370E, and FX-8320E. Back then we reviewed the FX-8370/FX-8370E CPUs under Linux but at the time didn't have our hands on the more affordable FX-8320E processor. In December AMD sent over the FX-8320E and so for the past few weeks I've been happily using this new Vishera CPU.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970/980: Windows vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance
Earlier this week I posted some benchmarks showing NVIDIA's Linux Driver Continues Running Strong Against The Windows Driver that also included the open-source Nouveau driver results in the mix too. However, due to using the Nouveau driver, the newest GeForce GTX 970/980 graphics cards were left out of testing as the open-source driver doesn't yet fully support these newer Maxwell GPUs. In this article though we're going back to compare the Windows vs. Linux performance of these two high-end NVIDIA GPUs at a UHD 4K resolution too.
Preliminary Tests Of Intel Sandy Bridge & Ivy Bridge vs. Broadwell
Chances are if you have a Haswell ultrabook/laptop, you're probably not looking at upgrading to a new Broadwell design unless your Haswell laptop had hardware issues, you really need a longer battery life via more power efficient hardware, or you just fall in love with one of the new Broadwell devices. If you're running an Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge laptop on the other hand, it might be time for an upgrade to get faster Intel graphics and greater power efficiency. Here's some preliminary figures I have for showing off the new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Core i7 5600U compared to some older SNB and IVB laptops.
PC-BSD 10.1 vs. Ubuntu 14.10 vs. Fedora 21 Benchmarks
For your viewing pleasure today are some benchmarks of PC-BSD 10.1 compared to Ubuntu 14.10 and Fedora 21 when testing with both the GCC and LLVM/Clang compilers.
Ubuntu 15.04 Is The Easy Path To Better Performance On Intel Broadwell
Unless you manually upgrade your kernel and other system packages from your Ubuntu 14.10 installation, Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet is an important release for users of new Intel Broadwell systems for ensuring your hardware reaches its maximum performance potential.
AMD Radeon Graphics Performance With The Linux 3.19 Kernel
With the Linux 3.19 kernel stabilizing nicely, here's a first look at the open-source AMD Radeon graphics performance using this new kernel that will be officially released in the weeks ahead. The Linux 3.18 kernel was compared to the latest Git code of Linux 3.19 for several different AMD Radeon HD series and Rx 200 series graphics cards.
What would you like to see in February? Let me know via the forums.
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