Servo, Skylake & Even Windows 10 Have Been Very Appealing To Linux Users

Written by Michael Larabel in Phoronix on 31 August 2015 at 09:23 PM EDT. 13 Comments
PHORONIX
It's been a long month: 305 open-source/Linux news stories and 30 featured/multi-page articles were typed for Phoronix this month.

It's part of the increasing rate of Phoronix news that almost any day of the week there's around ten or more original news stories and generally one Linux hardware review, driver benchmark, or other performance benchmarks -- on top of the work done on LinuxBenchmarking.com and the Phoronix Test Suite. With the summer intern finishing up work earlier this month, it's back to basically myself writing these hundreds of articles each month as part of my ~100+ hour work weeks. Anyhow, I digress, this is just a reminder that if you enjoy reading the daily content on Phoronix and appreciate it as an often exclusive source for Linux hardware/performance information, please consider subscribing to Phoronix Premium or making a PayPal tip. If you can't support financially, at least consider following us on Facebook and Twitter. At the very least, please don't view the site with any ad-blockers due to (pay-per-view) advertisements being the primary source of revenue by Phoronix Media.


Phoronix.com, unfortunately, doesn't have a full team of writers, due to the abundance of ad-blocking and the Linux "enthusiast" hardware niche not being a big focus for well-paying advertisers. Please consider showing your form of support for this struggle over the past 11+ years.


Of the 305 news stories / short articles this month, the top articles included:

I No Longer Have Any Trust In The Nest Protect
Earlier this year I wrote about protecting our Linux test farm with the Nest Protect. While I own ten of these "high tech smoke detectors" and initially recommended, I no longer trust them after a long night.

Mozilla's Servo Engine Now Capable Of Rendering GitHub Near Flawlessly
Mozilla's Servo next-generation layout engine is now nearly spot-on with its rendering of the GitHub.com web-site.

Google Rolls Out OnHub Router, Powered By Gentoo Linux
For those that didn't hear yet, Google announced another hardware product today -- a WiFi router called the OnHub.

BcacheFS vs. EXT4 vs. Btrfs vs. XFS vs. F2FS
Yesterday I posted the first independent benchmarks of the Bcachefs file-system, the new file-system aiming for EXT4/XFS speed while having Btrfs/ZFS-like features. Here are some more benchmarks.

Phoronix Reader: "GTK3 Kills Support For KDE"
It was the subject line of a news tip this weekend...

What Vulkan Looks Like For A Hobbyist 3D Developer
Experienced OpenGL/WebGL developer Sascha Willems has shared his views on the next-generation, low-level Vulkan graphics API from the perspective of a hobbyist developer.

The Top Features Of The Linux 4.2 Kernel
If all goes well, the Linux 4.2 kernel will be officially released before the day is through. If you haven't been keeping up with the flow of Phoronix articles over recent weeks, here's a look at some of the highlights for Linux 4.2.

Linux 4.3 Kernel To Add The MOST Driver Subsystem
While the Linux 4.2 kernel hasn't been officially released yet, Greg Kroah-Hartman sent in early his pull requests for the various subsystems he maintains for the Linux 4.3 merge window.

Steam's First Linux-Exclusive Launch Title Is Out
In the comments to this morning's article about the Steam Linux survey numbers for last month it was pointed out that as of last week there is a Linux-exclusive title currently on Steam.

Steam On Linux Crosses 1,400 Games
As of today there are now 1,400 games listed on Steam that have compatibility for Linux / SteamOS.

Early Intel Skylake Linux Users May Run Into A Silly Issue
Earlier today I wrote about the Intel Core i5 6600K "Skylake" running fine on Ubuntu Linux compared to the issues encountered when running the i7-5775C Broadwell processor. This Intel Skylake CPU is running fine so far on Linux but there is a minor workaround that many users will experience if upgrading to a Skylake processor in the next few months.

Some Features To Look Forward To With The Linux 4.3 Kernel
With Linux 4.2 hopefully being released this weekend, here's a look at some of the features that are currently out on the horizon for likely merging into the Linux 4.3 kernel.

The most popular featured-length articles meanwhile were:

A Linux User's Review Of Microsoft Windows 10
When I first started to talk to Michael about working with him this summer, one of the things we agreed on is that I would do a review of Windows 10. While I vastly prefer Linux as my day-to-day operating system, I do use Windows for gaming, and I also support Windows clients as part of my job at my University.

Shadow of Mordor Performance: Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu Linux
Last week Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was released for Linux after this AAA game premiered for Windows last year. Following its release I ran some Shadow of Mordor Linux benchmarks (and part two). Today are results on the same system when comparing the performance of this game under Ubuntu 15.04 to that of Windows 10 x64 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce: Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu 15.04 Linux OpenGL Benchmarks
Earlier this week I ran some Windows 10 vs. Linux benchmarks of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, the latest AAA game that's been ported to Linux. Those results showed the Linux version of this game running much slower than Windows, so while having a Win10 installation around I decided to also run some fresh OpenGL Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu Linux benchmarks on some older titles. Here are those results.

A New Linux File-System Aims For Speed While Having ZFS/Btrfs-Like Features
Another year, another new file-system, or so it seems in the Linux world. The main goal for this new file-system is to "match ext4 and xfs on performance and reliability, but with the features of btrfs/zfs."

Intel Skylake HD Graphics 530 Performance On Linux
Intel's Core i5 6600K and i7 6700K processors released earlier this month feature HD Graphics 530 as the first Skylake graphics processor. Given that Intel's Open-Source Technology Center has been working on open-source Linux graphics driver support for over a year for Skylake, I've been quite excited to see how the Linux performance compares for Haswell and Broadwell as well as AMD's APUs on Linux. In this article is the first of these OpenGL benchmarks comparing the Core i5 6600K to other offerings from Intel and AMD.

14-Way AMD vs. NVIDIA Linux Gaming Performance For DiRT Showdown
Yesterday marked the release of DiRT Showdown for Linux as ported over by Virtual Programming using their eON technology. With being able to use it as an automated, reproducible benchmark, I spent most of the day and into the night working on some initial AMD Radeon vs. NVIDIA GeForce graphics card benchmarks using this DiRT game that's finally available to Linux/SteamOS gamers, three years after it was released for Windows. This initial comparison is a 14-way Linux gaming graphics card comparison.

Intel Core i5 6600K Skylake Linux CPU Benchmarks
Earlier this week I began my Intel Skylake Linux benchmarking by posting some initial results from the HD Graphics 530, the new Intel "Gen9" graphics. While more Intel Linux HD Graphics 530 results are on the way, completed for this weekend are the initial CPU benchmark results comparing the Core i5 6600K to various other Intel Haswell/Broadwell processors as well as some AMD APUs and CPUs.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 950 Is A $150+ Bargain For Linux Gamers
NVIDIA this morning is announcing the GeForce GTX 950, which they are advertising as the successor to the GeForce GTX 650 that's still one of the most commonly used graphics cards by gamers. The GeForce GTX 950 is going to retail for less than $200 while claiming to deliver three times the performance of the GTX 650 and twice the performance efficiency of this former mid-range Kepler graphics card. The past few days I've been testing out the EVGA GeForce GTX 950 to great success under Linux.

Linux Power Efficiency Of Skylake, Broadwell, Haswell & Kaveri Compared
Last week from the new Intel Core i5 6600K "Skylake" processor I posted the initial Linux CPU benchmarks as well as results for the new HD Graphics 530 graphics processor with Intel's open-source Linux graphics driver stack. In this article are some complementary data points for this Core i5 Skylake CPU compared to Haswell and Broadwell processors as well as a AMD A10-7870K Godavari APU.

8-Way Linux Desktop OpenGL Comparison Atop Fedora 22
Beyond last week's Debian GNU/Hurd vs. GNU/Linux comparison, another set of updated benchmarks sought by some Phoronix Premium members have been a fresh cross-desktop environment comparison when running various games / OpenGL benchmarks across desktops / window managers.
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About The Author
Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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