Phoronix 2012 Year-End Summary
Published this year on Phoronix were 2,294 news articles and 274 featured full-length articles. This year sets a new record in terms of content since the birth of Phoronix in 2004 and compared to the 1,378 news postings and 261 featured articles in 2011. The year was also set by record growth in traffic and forum activity. Aside from a handful of exceptions, all of the Phoronix.com content this year was authored by your's truly.
Before getting to the lists, if you appreciated the content on Phoronix this year and over the past eight years, please consider subscribing to Phoronix Premium for multi-page ad-free viewing, and being in the holiday spirit with a PayPal tip. In addition to writing the thousands of pieces this year on Phoronix, my workload also includes leading the development of increasingly-used Linux benchmarking software and other ventures and projects, which is very time consuming and tiresome.
You can also follow Facebook on Phoronix or Twitter with @MichaelLarabel and @Phoronix.
Of the 274 featured full-length articles published this year, the most popular were:
Valve's Gabe Newell Talks Linux Steam Client, Source Engine
For those that have doubted the exclusive Phoronix claims for quite a while now that the Steam client and Source Engine are in fact being ported to Linux, the doubts can be nearly laid to rest. Even I began to wonder how long it would take before the clients for their popular games would be publicly released under Linux. However, after confirming the information perhaps a bit too soon, their level of Linux interest is much more clear after spending a day at their offices. A meeting topped off the day with Gabe Newell regarding Linux where he sounded more like a Linux saint than an ex-Microsoft employee. Valve does have some great plans for Linux beyond just shipping the client versions of Steam and their popular games on the Source Engine.
12-Core ARM Cluster Benchmarked Against Atom, Ivy Bridge, Fusion
Last week I shared my plans to build a low-cost, 12-core, 30-watt ARMv7 cluster running Ubuntu Linux. The ARM cluster that is built around the PandaBoard ES development boards is now online and producing results... Quite surprising results actually for a low-power Cortex-A9 compute cluster. Results include performance-per-Watt comparisons to Intel Atom and Ivy Bridge processors along with AMD's Fusion APU.
Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Approaches Stable State
Nouveau, the reverse-engineered open-source graphics driver for NVIDIA's entire range of graphics processors, is reaching a stable state where it's exiting the "staging" area of the Linux 3.4 kernel and being considered part of the standard, stable kernel configuration. How though is the Nouveau driver working out compared to NVIDIA's official, closed-source Linux graphics driver? Here are some new benchmarks from ten different graphics cards and other information on the state of Nouveau.
OS X 10.8 vs. Ubuntu Linux: A Battle With No Clear Winner
Since Apple released OX X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" last month, there have been tests going on at Phoronix of this latest Apple operating system not only on the Retina MacBook Pro, but other Mac hardware as well. In this article is a comparison of OS X 10.8 versus Ubuntu Linux -- when trying out both Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and the latest Ubuntu 12.10 development version.
Ubuntu 12.04 vs. Windows 7: Intel Sandy/Ivy Bridge Loses On Linux
Here's a comparison of the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS versus Microsoft Windows 7 performance when it comes to using Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors with integrated graphics. While the Sandy Bridge graphics performance was once faster when it came to OpenGL with the open-source Linux driver, that's no longer the case. The Linux OpenGL performance for both Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge hardware is now slower in most GL workloads than Intel's Windows 7 x64 driver.
Intel HD 4000 Ivy Bridge Graphics On Linux
Now having looked at the processor performance of the brand new Intel Core i7 3770K "Ivy Bridge" CPU, up now is our first look at the Intel HD 4000 "Gen7" graphics performance for the Ivy Bridge processors under Linux. Building upon what's turned into a huge success for Intel with their Sandy Bridge graphics with admirable performance and stable open-source Linux drivers, Ivy Bridge volleys Intel's Linux graphics capabilities into a whole new realm for those concerned about open-source graphics drivers.
Intel Core i7 3770K Ivy Bridge Linux Performance
Intel is finally announcing the first Ivy Bridge processors this morning. I have been extensively testing out the Intel Core i7 3770K, the current high-end Ivy Bridge processor, for the past few weeks under Ubuntu Linux. I have been extremely pleased with the Intel Core i7 Ivy Bridge processor under Linux with its phenomenal performance, power efficiency, and new features. This article is the first of many looking at the Linux performance of the new Intel Ivy Bridge processors.
Samsung's A15 Chromebook Loaded With Ubuntu Is Crazy Fast
Google recently launched the Samsung Chromebook that for $249 USD features an 11-inch display, a 16GB SSD, a promise of 6.5-hour battery life, and is backed by a Samsung Exynos 5 SoC. The Samsung Exynos 5 packs a 1.7GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor with ARM Mali-T604 graphics. With using this new ARM Cortex-A15 chip plus the Samsung Chromebook not being locked down so it can be loaded up with a Linux distribution like Ubuntu or openSUSE, it was a must-buy for carrying out some interesting Cortex-A15 Linux benchmarks. The Exynos 5 Dual in this affordable laptop packs an impressive performance punch.
Mac OS X 10.8 vs. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Performance
Regardless of whether you're an Apple fan or not, by now you've likely heard the information about Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" that began making its rounds on the Internet since last week. But how's the performance of Mac OS X 10.8 and how will it compare to the competition on the Linux side, namely Ubuntu 12.04 LTS? In this article are our first benchmarks of the developer preview release of Mac OS X 10.8 compared to Mac OS X 10.7.3 and then Ubuntu 11.10 plus the latest Ubuntu 12.04 LTS development snapshot.
AMD FX-8350 "Vishera" Linux Benchmarks
AMD today is lifting the lid on their Piledriver-based 2012 FX "Vishera" processors. Just weeks after the "Bulldozer 2" Trinity APUs were launched, the new high-end AMD FX CPUs are being rolled out. Being benchmarked at Phoronix today under Linux is the new AMD FX-8350 processor.
The ten most popular articles this year isn't a huge surprise. The most popular content on Phoronix generally has come down to the multiple Valve Linux exclusives, the plethora of Linux graphics driver/hardware content, and other Linux hardware comparisons. The most popular news articles meanwhile were:
NVIDIA PR Responds To Torvalds' Harsh Words
NVIDIA's PR department has issued a statement following the harsh comments by Linus Torvalds last week where he referred to the graphics company as the single worst company they have ever dealt with, called them out on not supporting Optimus, and other issues.
FreeBSD 10 To Use Clang Compiler, Deprecate GCC
As indicated by the Q1-2012 FreeBSD Status Report, LLVM's Clang compiler is quickly replacing GCC for this popular BSD operating system. The developers are also making much progress in a GNU-free C++11 stack. For FreeBSD 10 they're aiming for Clang as the default C/C++ compiler, deprecate GCC, and to have a BSD-licensed C++ stack.
NVIDIA Loses Huge GPU Order Due To Linux Blob
NVIDIA has lost an order of at least ten million graphics cards because their GeForce/Quadro driver is closed-source.
Valve's Gabe Says "Yes" To Steam Linux This Year
Here's the latest in the steaming excitement concerning Valve's Source Engine and Steam client coming to Linux.
Wayland 1.0 Officially Released
Wayland 1.0 along with the reference Weston 1.0 reference compositor were officially released on Monday.
Raspberry Pi GPU Driver Turns Out To Be Crap
While it looked hopeful at first with today's announcement of a fully open-source graphics stack for the Broadcom VideoCore found in the popular Raspberry Pi development board, upon closer examination it's actually not that good.
A New Project To Run Mac OS X Binaries On Linux
While there is the Wine project to run native Windows binaries on Linux (and other platforms), there's a new open-source project that's emerging for running Apple OS X binaries on Linux in a seamless manner.
Linus Torvalds Calls NVIDIA The Worst Company Ever
Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, has called out NVIDIA for their poor graphics drivers / support in a public presentation. In the talk he called NVIDIA "the single worst company we have ever dealt with" and ended his green comments with "NVIDIA: FUCK YOU!"
Debian Now Defaults To Xfce Desktop
In a commit made for Debian's forthcoming 7.0 Wheezy release, Xfce is now the default desktop choice.
A Message From Valve's Gabe Newell
Gabe Newell of Valve, the company behind Steam and the Source Engine, has allegedly sent over a message to Phoronix.
Again, the top news articles this year aren't a huge surprise. If you missed it, also see The Most Popular Linux Benchmarks Of 2012 and The Most Popular Linux Hardware Of 2012.
Here's to an even better 2013!
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