This Week: New Releases, Desktop Fun, Gaming
Posted by Michael Larabel on August 30, 2009
This week at Phoronix most of the new content was related to new software releases, enhancements to the Linux desktop, and Linux gaming. In fact, it was a particularly great week in the free software world with all of the happenings.
Back on Tuesday, Red Hat released Fedora 12 Alpha, which brings a huge number of changes. We talked about some of the new Fedora work in this article. Slackware 13.0 was also released. In the Ubuntu world we learned that Canonical may be willing to patch Ubuntu's Firefox to provide JPEG 2000 support and there is now XSplash, which is a new splash screen coming around for Ubuntu 9.10.
Impacting the Linux desktop was word that Compiz 0.9 is around the corner and a development release of the GNOME Shell. Sparking a bit of controversy, the Ubuntu Software Store was unveiled on Thursday. Some of the other package releases in the past week include the Linux 2.6.31-rc8 kernel, CUPS 1.4.0, and a Skype 2.1 beta.
Mac OS X 10.6 was released this week and we provided an extensive number of Snow Leopard benchmarks on launch-day. But before that we released Bardu Alpha 1, which is the first development snapshot for what will ultimately go on to become version 2.2 of the Phoronix Test Suite. The Ubuntu 9.10 vs. Mac OS X 10.6 benchmarks are coming tomorrow.
There was also the usual roundabout with Linux drivers, including VIA releasing a new 2D driver, NVIDIA pushing out new proprietary updates, and an Intel X.Org driver point release. Also made known is that a new X Server release in the 1.6 series is coming. Other important events was the VGA Arbiter code hitting the X Server and OpenCL coming about on Gallium3D.
Of interest to those into gaming and Linux, LGP announced this week that Shadowgrounds: Survivor has gone gold (should be available in 2~3 weeks) and Warsow 0.5 was released with plenty of new features.
Other Phoronix articles this week included Ubuntu 9.10 boot performance benchmarks, a review of the Sumo Lounge Omni chair, and early benchmarks of Ubuntu 9.10 vs. OpenSuSE 11.2 vs. Mandriva 2010.
Back on Tuesday, Red Hat released Fedora 12 Alpha, which brings a huge number of changes. We talked about some of the new Fedora work in this article. Slackware 13.0 was also released. In the Ubuntu world we learned that Canonical may be willing to patch Ubuntu's Firefox to provide JPEG 2000 support and there is now XSplash, which is a new splash screen coming around for Ubuntu 9.10.
Impacting the Linux desktop was word that Compiz 0.9 is around the corner and a development release of the GNOME Shell. Sparking a bit of controversy, the Ubuntu Software Store was unveiled on Thursday. Some of the other package releases in the past week include the Linux 2.6.31-rc8 kernel, CUPS 1.4.0, and a Skype 2.1 beta.
Mac OS X 10.6 was released this week and we provided an extensive number of Snow Leopard benchmarks on launch-day. But before that we released Bardu Alpha 1, which is the first development snapshot for what will ultimately go on to become version 2.2 of the Phoronix Test Suite. The Ubuntu 9.10 vs. Mac OS X 10.6 benchmarks are coming tomorrow.
There was also the usual roundabout with Linux drivers, including VIA releasing a new 2D driver, NVIDIA pushing out new proprietary updates, and an Intel X.Org driver point release. Also made known is that a new X Server release in the 1.6 series is coming. Other important events was the VGA Arbiter code hitting the X Server and OpenCL coming about on Gallium3D.
Of interest to those into gaming and Linux, LGP announced this week that Shadowgrounds: Survivor has gone gold (should be available in 2~3 weeks) and Warsow 0.5 was released with plenty of new features.
Other Phoronix articles this week included Ubuntu 9.10 boot performance benchmarks, a review of the Sumo Lounge Omni chair, and early benchmarks of Ubuntu 9.10 vs. OpenSuSE 11.2 vs. Mandriva 2010.
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