Ice Lake, Ryzen 9, Kernel Happenings & Other Highlights For An Exciting October
October was an interesting month with the Ryzen 9 3900X continuing to excite many Linux gamers, beginning to deliver Intel Ice Lake / Gen11 Linux benchmarks (much more is on the way for this month!), Linux 5.4 getting closer to release while Linux 5.5 features are starting to get firmed up, there continues to be much debate over mobile Linux efforts, Ubuntu 19.10 and Fedora 31 saw their successful releases, and much more. Below is a look at the most popular content on Phoronix for October with continuing to offer an average of around ten new articles each and every day.
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The most popular featured articles/reviews for October included:
Apple macOS 10.15 vs. Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu 19.10 Performance Benchmarks
In addition to this month bringing the release of the Ubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine", Apple also shipped macOS 10.15 "Catalina" as the sixteenth major release of their macOS operating system. So with that it makes for an interesting time seeing how macOS 10.15 competes against both Ubuntu 19.10 and Windows 10 on an Apple MacBook Pro. Here are those results from dozens of benchmarks.
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X vs. Intel Core i9 9900K Performance In 400+ Benchmarks
Given the recent AMD "ABBA" Ryzen 3000 boost fix, the upcoming release of Ubuntu 19.10 powered by Linux 5.3, here is a fresh round of AMD Ryzen 9 3900X vs. Intel Core i9 9900K benchmarks in a side-by-side matchup . It's just not any comparison but our largest i9-9900K vs. 3900X comparison ever: 112 gaming benchmarks and 321 system/CPU benchmarks carried out for our most extensive look yet at how these ~$500 CPUs are competing in this fierce race.
Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu 19.10 vs. Clear Linux vs. Debian 10.1 Benchmarks On An Intel Core i9
Earlier this week I provided some fresh Windows vs. Linux web browser benchmarks for both Firefox and Chrome. For those curious how the current Windows 10 vs. Linux performance is for other workloads, here is a fresh look across a variety of software applications and while testing the near-final Ubuntu 19.10, Intel's rolling-release Clear Linux, and Debian 10.1 while running off an Intel Core i9 HEDT platform.
The Mitigation Impact Difference On AMD Ryzen 9 3900X vs. Intel Core i9 9900K Performance
Last week I shared benchmark results of the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X vs. Intel Core i9 9900K in 400+ benchmarks in the largest comparison ever for these two competing ~$500 USD processors. If that wasn't enough, I repeated the hundreds of CPU/system benchmarks again but without any of the recent CPU security mitigations in place to see how the situation would have played out pre-2018.
Firefox 70 Linux Performance, Firefox 70 vs. Chrome 78 Benchmarks
With the new releases of Mozilla Firefox 70 and Google Chrome 78 here are fresh benchmarks of these web browsers with testing under Ubuntu Linux. Additionally, on the Firefox side looking at the performance with WebRender and compared to prior releases.
A Quick Look At EXT4 vs. ZFS Performance On Ubuntu 19.10 With An NVMe SSD
For those thinking of playing with Ubuntu 19.10's new experimental ZFS desktop install option in opting for using ZFS On Linux in place of EXT4 as the root file-system, here are some quick benchmarks looking at the out-of-the-box performance of ZFS/ZoL vs. EXT4 on Ubuntu 19.10 using a common NVMe solid-state drive.
Intel Core i7-1065G7 Ice Lake Linux Performance Benchmarks
Recently I picked up a Dell XPS 7390 Core i7 Ice Lake laptop for finally testing this Intel 10nm+ processor under Linux. I have delivered some results so far like the Windows vs. Linux OpenGL/Vulkan performance and the Spectre impact with Ice Lake while this article is the first of several really drilling down on the CPU performance. In this article are benchmarks showing how the Core i7-1065G7 compares in raw performance and performance-per-Watt to the earlier Core i7-8565U (Whiskey Lake) and Core i7-8550U (Kabylake-R) processors.
Windows 10 vs. Eight Linux Distributions In Various "Creator" Workloads On An Intel Core i9
For those wondering about the current performance of desktop Linux distributions against Microsoft Windows 10 with the latest updates as we embark upon fall update season, here is a look at the performance of eight different Linux distributions compared to Windows 10. While a larger set of cross-platform tests are currently being worked on, for this article we are focusing on different "creator" workloads from video/audio encoding, render workloads, and related software prior to the larger comparison in the next week or two.
The Spectre Mitigation Impact For Intel Ice Lake With Core i7-1065G7
For those wondering if -- or how much -- of a performance impact mitigations still make regarding Spectre for Intel's long-awaited 10nm+ Ice Lake processors, here is the rundown on the mitigation state and the performance impact.
Windows 10 vs. Linux OpenGL/Vulkan Driver Performance With Intel Icelake Iris Plus Graphics
With picking up the Dell XPS 7390 with Intel Core i7-1065G7 for being able to deliver timely benchmarks from Intel's long-awaited 10nm+ Icelake generation, one of the first areas we have been testing is the Iris Plus "Gen 11" graphics performance. In this article are our initial Windows 10 vs. Linux graphics performance numbers for Ice Lake.
And the most popular news for October:
Google Is Uncovering Hundreds Of Race Conditions Within The Linux Kernel
One of the contributions Google is working on for the upstream Linux kernel is a new "sanitizer". Over the years Google has worked on AddressSanitizer for finding memory corruption bugs, UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer for undefined behavior within code, and other sanitizers. The Linux kernel has been exposed to this as well as other open-source projects while their newest sanitizer is KCSAN and focused as a Kernel Concurrency Sanitizer.
A Vast Majority Of Linux's Input Improvements Are Developed By One Individual
While there is an ever increasing number of open-source developers focusing on the Linux graphics stack with the GPU drivers and related infrastructure, it's quite a different story when it comes to the Linux input side. It's basically one developer that has been working on the Linux input improvements for the past number of years.
Rewriting Old Solaris C Code In Python Yielded A 17x Performance Improvement
While we normally hear of rewriting code from Python and other scripting languages into C/C++ when its a matter of performance, in the case of Oracle Solaris it was taking old C code and modernizing it in Python 3 to yield a ~17x performance improvement.
KDE Plasma Mobile Is Beginning To Look Surprisingly Good
The KDE Plasma Mobile team has begun publishing weekly reports on their development efforts for making KDE software more suitable for mobile devices as well as convergence and other efforts in common with KDE on the desktop.
The FSF Is Re-Evaluating Its Relationship With The GNU
With RMS resigning as head of the FSF but ultimately is remaining as head of the GNU, the Free Software Foundation is now publicly re-evaluating its relationship with the GNU.
Ubuntu's ZFS Trajectory Is Going From Exciting To Even More Exciting
While it is already exciting to have the Ubuntu 19.10 desktop easily support installations to a root ZFS file-system, moving ahead with their original Zsys effort it should be even more exciting for Ubuntu storage possibilities on both the desktop and server.
An Interview With Zlatan Todoric, Open-Source Developer & Former Purism CTO
With the early Librem 5 smartphones now shipping from their "Aspen" batch and recent Reddit discussions about the Librem 5 roping him in, former Purism CTO Zlatan Todoric has agreed to a brief interview on Phoronix.
Ubuntu 19.10 Makes It So Easy To Have Your Desktop Running Off A ZFS File-System
As we reported this weekend, the Ubuntu desktop installer "Ubiquity" has landed the much anticipated ZFS install support. That's now propagated through to the Ubuntu 19.10 daily ISOs and does indeed make for a quick and easy setup of Ubuntu Eoan running off a root ZFS file-system.
Canonical Is At Around 437 Employees, Pulled In $99M While Still Operating At A Loss
In addition to this week being exciting for the Ubuntu 19.10 release due out on Thursday followed by the kicking off of the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" cycle, Ubuntu maker Canonical coincidentally made their financial statement filings in the UK this week where they are headquartered that gives a fresh look at their financial performance ahead of a possible IPO in the next few years.
Intel Has Been Quietly Developing A New Backend Compiler For Their OpenGL/Vulkan Drivers
One of the interesting reveals so far from this week's X.Org Developers' Conference in Montreal is that Intel has been developing a new back-end compiler for their OpenGL/Vulkan Linux drivers based upon their experiences so far with their NIR support and the lessons learned over the past number of years.
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