With this past week's release of Pyston 2.1 as an alternative Python interpreter I was curious to see how the performance compared to that of upstream Python... So here are some weekend benchmarks with a Ryzen 9 5900X system.

On a Ryzen 9 5900X system running Ubuntu 20.10, I ran a few Python benchmarks using its stock Python 3.8.6 installation, Python 3.9.1 as the latest upstream and built from source

GNU Binutils 2.36 is out today as the latest version of this collection of binary utilities for Linux/open-source systems.

As usual the x86_64 space for today's Binutils update is fairly eventful around supporting new CPU instructions. There is now support for AVX VNNI, HRESET, UINTR, TDX, AMX and Intel Key Locker instructions. All these additions are fairly notable for new and upcoming CPUs, especially the likes of the Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX) and AVX (non

The Linux kernel mentor program for the spring 2021 period is now accepting applications.

The Linux Foundation's mentorship program for getting new developers involved in kernel developer are now accepting applications for their spring initiative. This program is primarily focused on fixing easy-to-address bugs that have turned up via automated testing / tools analyzing the code but not yet addressed upstream.

The mentorship program focuses on these open bugs, how to address them, and the processes for getting the patches reviewed and merged into the upstream

Intel's latest open-source Linux driver contribution is a hinge driver that is set to debut with Linux 5.12.

The "hid-sensor-custom-intel-hinge" driver is for supporting a hinge sensor found in many modern Intel laptops. This sensor is able to calculate the angle of the laptop's hinge, the screen angle, and the keyboard angle relative to the horizon/ground. I hadn't realized this sensor was all that common these days but apparently so and enough

While GTK 4.0 has been released, there still is major work to look forward to with future GTK4 releases. One area seeing recent and ongoing improvements is with the toolkit's OpenGL renderer.

Even though GTK4 has a Vulkan renderer, the OpenGL renderer is still of interest for cross-platform support particularly for macOS where Vulkan doesn't exist unless employing MoltenVK. There is also still legacy and other cases like the Nouveau driver stack where Vulkan isn't available, thus in 2021

With the upcoming GCC 11 compiler release the GNU compiler's just-in-time (JIT) library is no longer considered to be of alpha quality.

Libgccjit is considered production quality with GCC 11. GCC 5 was released nearly six years ago already and with that release came the introduction of this GCC JIT library initially developed by Red Hat's compiler experts. It was initially written as an embed-friendly library, to be used by bytecode interpreters and other potential use-cases with there even having

Two years and nine patches later, xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.17 is out as the latest X.Org driver update for this open-source NVIDIA driver component.

Like the other DDX drivers with the exception of the generic xf86-video-modesetting driver that is quite common now to those still running on X.Org with the open-source stack, xf86-video-nouveau seldom sees new activity. Since the prior v1.0.16

Voltage, temperature, and fan speed reporting among desktop motherboards under Linux remains one of the unfortunate areas even in 2021... Many SIO ICs remain publicly undocumented and the Linux driver support is often left up to the community and usually through reverse-engineering. Thus the mainline Linux kernel support is left to suffer especially among newer desktop motherboards. At least for Linux 5.12 some ASRock motherboards will begin seeing their voltage/temperature reporting now function.

The Linux kernel has supported the Nuvoton NCT6

For those interested in Godot as the premiere open-source 2D/3D game engine or just looking for some interesting technical talks to enjoy this weekend, the first GodotCon Online is today.

GodotCon 2021 is the open-source game engine's first entirely online conference for developers, users, and other contributors to this promising open-source project. The YouTube-based event has been running from 8:45 UTC today until 16:00 UTC, but fear not if you