Phoronix

Debian developers are still hoping they will be able to remove the Qt4 tool-kit during the Debian 10 "Buster" development cycle...

Our Vega GPU benchmarks didn't stop after yesterday's Radeon RX Vega Linux review or open vs. closed driver comparison. This morning for your viewing pleasure is a fun comparison looking at how the Radeon RX Vega 56 and RX Vega 64 compare to several generations of the older Radeon graphics cards going back to the HD 2900XT (R600) graphics processor.

Vulkan 1.0.58 was released yesterday as the latest minor update to this high-performance graphics API and already Mesa's RADV driver has patches pending...

It looks like AMD developers have an initiative underway to make the process easier of updating the Radeon Linux graphics drivers whether it be the fully open-source driver stack or the hybrid AMDGPU-PRO driver...

Today marks the third iteration of the rolling-release Solus Linux distribution project that has become increasingly popular with enthusiasts and is also aligned with their own Budgie Desktop Environment...

It was twenty years ago today that Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena founded the GNOME project...

Eric Anholt at Broadcom continues working on the VC5 driver stack that should yield next-generation graphics for future Broadcom SoCs, some of which will hopefully make it into future Raspberry Pi revisions...

Of the many interesting findings from this morning's AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 / 64 Linux review was how the open-source AMDGPU+RadeonSI driver stack with OpenGL actually outperforms AMDGPU-PRO driver, the hybrid Radeon Linux driver relying upon AMD's closed-source OpenGL driver that's also shared with the Windows OpenGL driver. Here are more benchmarks of the RX Vega 56 and RX Vega 64 showing the margins by which AMDGPU+RadeonSI can outperform AMDGPU-PRO.

ZFS On Linux (ZOL) has finally picked up support for native encryption...

On the same day as Microsoft releasing .NET Core 2.0, the Mono folks are out with a software update of their own...

The Kodi HTPC/multimedia software has revamped support for Wayland as an alternative to the X.Org Server on Linux thanks to Google Summer of Code developer Philipp Kerling...

Microsoft announced the .NET Core 2.0 release this morning and it comes with continued Linux support...

For those anxious to see AMDGPU's DC / DAL / display code mainlined either for the Radeon RX Vega support, FreeSync capabilities, HDMI/DP audio, or other display features, there is now a public TODO list...

Those using the Reiser4 file-system in some capacity can now safely upgrade to the Linux 4.12 kernel...

For those wanting to use AMDGPU-PRO to power your RX Vega setup even though the performance is slower than RadeonSI OpenGL, the launch-day driver is now public...

The Radeon RX Vega is shipping today and for Linux gamers this is a serious AMD offering for being able to handle modern Linux games. But it goes beyond that in the RX Vega launch easily being the most successful launch ever for a GPU backed by open-source drivers on launch day. I've been spending the past several days testing the Radeon RX Vega 56 and RX Vega 64. The RX Vega 56 is a very competent graphics card for $399 USD while those wanting to reach peak performance for Linux gaming on a open-source system can find the RX Vega 64 for $499 USD. The open-source support for Vega isn't without some initial setup hurdles and some growing pains along the way, but it's looking very good for launch-day and the best DRM+Mesa support we have ever seen at-launch for the premiere of a new discrete GPU architecture.

With the just-posted Radeon RX Vega 56 / 64 Linux review, there aren't any OpenCL benchmarks due to some issues encountered in the process. When the Vega OpenCL support is in better shape, results will be published. But for those anxious to see anyways what the current ROCm OpenCL performance looks like for Ethereum with Ethminer, here's a quick look...

Xfce 4.14 is still running behind schedule but at least progress is being made on this lightweight, GTK-based desktop environment...

The Khronos Group has kicked off the week by releasing Vulkan 1.0.58 as the latest minor update to this high-performance graphics API...

Richard Biener of SUSE has just announced the release of the GNU Compiler Collection 7.2...

David Airlie has managed to figure out some crucial fixes for improving the support of Radeon GCN 1.0 "Southern Islands" and GCN 1.1 "Sea Islands" hardware with this open-source Vulkan driver...

Linus Torvalds has just announced the fifth weekly release candidate of the upcoming Linux 4.13 kernel...

A little bit late but the beta for next month's GNOME 3.26 is now available for testing...

Ending out the weekend, the KDE crew has released Frameworks 5.37 as the collection of complementary components to Qt5...

GNOME's annual developer conference, GUADEC, wrapped up earlier this month in Manchester. The videos are now available for those that were unable to attend this Linux desktop event...

Intel engineers continue tuning the Sandy Bridge scheduler information within the LLVM compiler infrastructure...

One of the many successful Google Summer of Code (GSoC) projects this year by student developers is the work done on Piper, the new GTK3 user-interface for configuring gaming mice under Linux via libratbag...

Those wishing to do some database testing this weekend can try out PostgreSQL 10's third beta update, which was released earlier this week...

Today's guide looks like it should be useful to many of you for How To Setup Your Linux System For The Radeon RX Vega. If you are planning to carry out those instructions this weekend or in the next few days, you may want to add in a few extra Mesa patches...

Student developer Gurkirpal Singh has sent out his OpenMAX "Tizonia" Gallium3D state tracker patches for review by upstream Mesa developers, marking a successful GSoC 2017 project...

Yesterday the embargo expired on showing you the Radeon RX Vega hardware, both the Vega 56 and Vega 64. While the embargo for sharing reviews and performance benchmarks for the Radeon RX Vega doesn't expire until tomorrow (Monday) when the hardware will become available, today I am providing a brief how-to guide for setting up both drivers (AMDGPU+RadeonSI and AMDGPU-PRO) for the RX Vega 56 / 64. So if you are hoping to buy a Radeon RX Vega tomorrow when they become available, this is what you can do today for getting your system(s) ready.

The fourth weekly release candidate of Mesa 17.2 is now available for testing...

This week I ended up receiving the Radeon RX Vega 56 and Radeon RX Vega 64 from AMD. While the embargo on performance figures for the Radeon RX Vega series doesn't expire until Monday, the embargo expires this morning for "unboxing" these consumer Vega cards. I don't quite get those interested in the unboxing hype, but the Radeon RX Vega 64 box did get me smiling (aside from the card itself) for a small gesture.

Mir 1.0 might be close to being released for Ubuntu 17.10, but it doesn't yet have Wayland support...

Vulkan-CPU, the GSoC-born project to basically create a Vulkan software renderer, has begun implementing a graphics pipeline...

Those not regularly using Coreboot may have not realized that it didn't yet have UEFI support, but now it does...

If you have extra time this weekend, you may be interested in watching videos from DebConf17, the annual Debian Developers' conference...

Separate from the AMD Ryzen performance marginality problem affecting Linux users, BSD users have been working on a workaround for their kernels to address problems with how their user stacks are mapped...

Feral Interactive is soliciting requests for what Linux game ports you would like to see from this British game porting firm...

Due to delays in the Fedora 26 release pushing it back by more than one month, the Fedora 27 schedule is rather tight with the change completion deadline having already been earlier this month and the Fedora 27 branching from Rawhide taking place in four days...

Latte Dock, the popular desktop dock powered by Qt5 for KDE systems, is out with a shiny new feature release...

For those drawn by the performance of AMD's Ryzen processors for its performance/value and thinking about building a Kodi/HTPC media box for the living room, a Steam Linux gaming PC / DIY Steam Box, or just want a small form factor PC, Gigabyte's AB350N-GAMING WiFi is a mini-ITX motherboard that plays fine with Linux and offers a lot of functionality for its small size.

A Phoronix reader allowed me to access his Radeon Vega Frontier Edition system when checking on the ROCm OpenCL benchmark and uploaded the data to OpenBenchmarking.org...

Initial enablement of the ARMv8.3-A architecture changes are now in place for the LLVM compiler infrastructure...

For those into real-time tactics video games or titles themed around World War II, Sudden Strike 4 is launching today and Kalypso Media has made good on their word for day-one Linux support...

A few days back I wrote about an open-source Vulkan renderer coming for Doom 3, yes, the classic id Software video game. That Vulkan renderer for the id Tech 4 engine is now available...

It's considered pre-alpha quality so most of you will probably want to avoid it, but those wanting to easily test out the early Qt 5.10 state at least now have a binary package...

For those thinking of switching to the new multi-queue block layer, a.k.a. blk-mq, be forewarned that there are still some regressions outstanding...

The second release candidate has been tagged for the upcoming LLVM 5.0 release...

For those that haven't been following the development of Sway, it's an i3-compatible Wayland compositor that works with existing i3 configuration files and continues supporting the latest Wayland functionality...