Linux BSOD, NVIDIA Linux Excitement, Intel Sierra Forest & Other June Highlights
During last month on Phoronix were 239 original news articles written by your's truly along with a number of Linux hardware reviews / featured benchmark articles. June was very exciting from the Intel Xeon 6 Sierra Forest launch to a lot of exciting open-source software developments. July should be even more exciting with the AMD Zen 5 processor launches this month, the Linux 6.11 merge window kicking off, etc.
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The most viewed news for June on Phoronix included:
Linux's New DRM Panic "Blue Screen of Death" In Action
After being talked about for years of DRM panic handling and coming with a "Blue Screen of Death" solution for DRM/KMS drivers, Linux 6.10 is introducing a new DRM panic handler infrastructure for being able to display a message when a panic occurs. This is especially important for those building a kernel without VT/FBCON support where otherwise viewing the kernel panic message isn't otherwise easily available.
Ubuntu 24.10 Now Defaults To Wayland On NVIDIA
With Ubuntu 24.10 due for release in October one of the expressed planned changes has been NVIDIA defaulting to using Wayland rather than X11 for the default desktop session. As of this past week the change is now in place for Ubuntu 24.10 daily users that will find Wayland-by-default when using the official NVIDIA Linux graphics driver.
Systemd 256.1 Fixes "systemd-tmpfiles" Unexpectedly Deleting Your /home Directory
For those running the command "systemd-tmpfiles --purge" and think that this command just deletes your temporary files, think again and watch out. In reality it will delete all files and directories created by a tmpfiles.d entry... Including the /home that is created by systemd-tmpfiles' home.conf. With users being bitten in recent days by this behavior when they were just expecting tmp files to be removed, systemd 256.1 is now available and does have a change to avoid inadvertently deleting your all-important home directory.
Longtime Linux Wireless Developer Passes Away
The Linux kernel community has sadly lost one of its longtime, prolific contributors to the wireless (WiFi) drivers.
Linux Shoots Past The 2% Threshold For The Steam Survey, AMD CPU Use Breaks 75%
When Steam on Linux debuted a decade ago it maintained around a 2% marketshare before receding and then beginning its long climb back up following the debut of Steam Play for running Windows games on Linux and then with the much anticipated Steam Deck handheld game console and the modern Arch-based SteamOS. Valve just published their May 2024 numbers for the Steam Survey and they indicate the Linux marketshare is finally back above 2%.
Linus Torvalds Throws Down The Hammer: Extensible Scheduler "sched_ext" In Linux 6.11
The extensible scheduler "sched_ext" code has proven quite versatile for opening up better Linux gaming performance, more quickly prototyping new scheduler changes, Ubuntu/Canonical has been evaluating it for pursuing a more micro-kernel like design, and many other interesting approaches with it. Yet it's remained out of tree but that is now changing with the upcoming Linux 6.11 cycle.
TUXEDO Developing A Snapdragon X Elite Linux Laptop
Bavarian Linux PC vendor TUXEDO Computers is working on bringing a Snapdragon X Elite powered laptop to market.
AMD's Newest Open-Source Surprise: "Peano" - An LLVM Compiler For Ryzen AI NPUs
There was a very exciting Friday evening code drop out of AMD... They announced a new project called Peano that serves as an open-source LLVM compiler back-end for AMD/Xilinx AI engine processors with a particular focus on the Ryzen AI SOCs with existing Phoenix and Hawk Point hardware as well as the upcoming XDNA2 found with the forthcoming Ryzen AI 300 series.
Blumenkrantz "Massively Improves" Mesa's glReadPixels Performance With 7 Lines Of Code
Mike Blumenkrantz of Valve's open-source/Linux graphics driver team has submitted a merge request to "massively" improve the OpenGL glReadPixels performance within the common Mesa state tracker.
Ubuntu Talks Up A RISC-V Octa-Core Laptop
Ubuntu maker Canonical put out a news release today around the DC-ROMA RISC-V Laptop II that is an octa-core RISC-V laptop shipping soon with Ubuntu Linux.
Apple M4 Support Added To The LLVM Compiler, Confirming Its ISA Capabilities
Apple compiler engineers have contributed Apple M4 CPU support to the upstream LLVM/Clang compiler via the new -mcpu=apple-m4 target. Interestingly the Apple M4 is exposed as an ARMv8.7 derived design.
NVIDIA Exploring Ways To Better Support An Upstream Kernel Driver
Here's how an exciting message from a NVIDIA engineer that just hit the mailing list begins: "NVIDIA has been exploring ways to better support the effort for an upstream kernel mode driver for GPUs that are capable of running GSP-RM firmware, since the introduction to Nova."
KDE Receives New Human Interface Guidelines For 2024
Prominent KDE developer Nate Graham has been working with various KDE designers and developers to establish a new set of Human Interface Guidelines (HIG).
GNOME OS Continues Seeing New Features, New GNOME App for Viewing 3D Models
GNOME developers continue to be quite busy this summer from enhancing their desktop with more security and accessibility features to further crafting GNOME OS.
Updated Intel Meteor Lake Tuning For Linux Shows Huge Performance/Power Improvements
It's like magic with one line of code changed in the Linux kernel that Intel is reporting up to 19% performance improvement for Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" and up to an 11% improvement in performance per Watt. Or in another EPP mode, the power consumption during video playback can be reduced by 52%!
KDE Plasma 6.1 Performing Much Better On Older Intel Integrated Graphics
With the recently released KDE Plasma 6.1 desktop environment, those still relying on old Intel integrated graphics should have a much more pleasant experience thanks to improvements made to the KWin compositor. For very old Intel integrated graphics, it can effectively be a night and day difference upgrading to the new Plasma 6.1 desktop.
Rust-Written Redox OS Continues Gravitating Toward The COSMIC Desktop
The Rust-written Redox OS operating system issued their May monthly status report to highlight the various improvements made to this original open-source OS.
Linux Can Have A "Black Screen Of Death" For Kernel Panics
With some Linux users not liking the recently showcased new Linux "Blue Screen of Death" for kernel panics, Red Hat engineer Javier Martinez Canillas who has been one of those involved in the new DRM Panic infrastructure showed that it can also be a "black screen of death" if so desired.
Firefox 127 With 32-bit x86 Linux Pretending To Be "x86_64" To Reduce Fingerprinting
Mozilla Firefox 127.0 binaries are available for download today ahead of tomorrow's official announcement. Firefox 127 brings a few nice changes for this month's feature update.
Microsoft Releases Azure Linux 3.0 Preview
Microsoft has published its first tagged preview of the upcoming Azure Linux 3.0 operating system.
And the most viewed reviews / featured articles:
FreeBSD 14.1 vs. DragonFlyBSD 6.4 vs. NetBSD 10 vs. Linux Benchmarks
After last week looking at how FreeBSD 14.1 has improved performance over FreeBSD 14.0, here is an expanded cross-OS comparison now looking at how the new FreeBSD 14.1 stable release compares to the recently released NetBSD 10.0, the current DragonFlyBSD 6.4 release, and then CentOS Stream 9 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for some Linux comparison data points.
Intel Xeon 6780E / Xeon 6766E 144-Core Performance Benchmarks
With Intel's launch today of the Xeon 6700E series processors formerly codenamed Sierra Forest I am now able to share benchmarks of these new E-core server processors. Here is an initial look at the Intel Sierra Forest Linux performance using the Xeon 6766E and Xeon 6780E 144-core server processors in both single and dual socket configurations compared to prior Intel Xeon processors and the AMD EPYC competition.
One-Line Patch For Intel Meteor Lake Yields Up To 72% Better Performance, +7% Geo Mean
Covered last week on Phoronix was a new patch from Intel that with tuning to the P-State CPU frequency scaling driver was showing big wins for Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" performance and power efficiency. I was curious with the Intel claims posted for a couple benchmarks and thus over the weekend set out to run many Intel Meteor Lake benchmarks on this one-line kernel patch... The results are great for boosting the Linux performance of Intel Core ultra laptops with as much as 72% better performance.
FreeBSD 14.1 vs. FreeBSD 14.0 Benchmarks On AMD Ryzen Threadripper
Debuting last week was FreeBSD 14.1 with performance improvements and more. Given there being some performance optimizations and other upgrades like a more recent LLVM Clang compiler by default, I've begun running some benchmarks of this newest FreeBSD stable release. In today's article is a quick comparison of FreeBSD 14.1 vs. FreeBSD 14.0 performance using an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7980X 64-core processor within the System76 Thelio Major workstation.
Intel's Linux Software Optimizations Still Pay Off For Xeon 6700E "Sierra Forest" E-Core CPUs
When testing Intel's aggressive software Linux optimizations shipped by way of their in-house Clear Linux distribution, I am most often testing it on their high core count Xeon processors with AVX-512... Over the years in dozens of Phoronix articles there have been countless metrics showing off the out-of-the-box performance benefits from leveraging software built for higher x86_64 micro-architecture feature levels, employing compiler-based function multi-versioning, and the other extensive performance tuning carried out by Intel software engineers. But now with the Intel Xeon 6700E "Sierra Forest" series now being available for these all-E-core server processors, I was curious about quantifying the Clear Linux benefits over the likes of Ubuntu Linux. Here are those benchmarks for those curious about the difference.
Intel Xeon 6766E/6780E Sierra Forest vs. Ampere Altra Performance & Power Efficiency
With the launch day review of the Intel Xeon 6766E and Xeon 6780E "Sierra Forest" processors the focus was on looking at the performance and power efficiency compared to prior Intel Xeon generations as well as the AMD EPYC competition. For those wondering how Intel's new Xeon 6 Sierra Forest processors compete against Amere Computing's "cloud native" Altra Max processors, here are those benchmarks looking at the performance and power efficiency.
AMD EPYC 4364P & 4564P @ DDR5-4800 / DDR5-5200 vs. Intel Xeon E-2488
With the AMD EPYC 4004 series that was announced in May and we have delivered benchmarks of the entire EPYC 4004 stack from the 4-core SKU up through the 16-core model with 3D V-Cache, there are many advantages over Intel's Xeon E-2400 series competition. In addition to going up to 16 cores versus 8 with the Xeon E-2400 series, the more competitive pricing, the 3D V-Cache SKUs, and 28 PCIe lanes rather than 20, the AMD EPYC 4004 models also support DDR5-5200 memory where as the Intel Raptor Lake E-2400 models are bound to DDR5-4800. In this follow-up testing is a look at the AMD EPYC 4004 performance both at DDR5-4800 and DDR5-5200 speeds for showing the performance difference.
Intel Launches Xeon 6700E Sierra Forest CPUs - Initially Up To 144 Cores
Intel is using Computex 2024 for announcing the first Xeon 6 processors, which are the E-Core Sierra Forest models that initially are available in up to 144 cores per socket. Intel is also using Computex to shed more light on the Gaudi 3 AI accelerator and the upcoming P core Xeon 6 Granite Rapids processors and the later launch of the Xeon 6900E models with up to 288 cores per socket.
Here's to hopefully an exciting July!
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