Ringing In 2020 By Clang'ing The Linux 5.5 Kernel - Benchmarks Of GCC vs. Clang Built Kernels
One of the interesting milestones this year in the compiler world was the ability with LLVM Clang 9.0 to compile Linux 5.3+ for x86_64 without needing any extra patches to either the kernel or the LLVM/Clang compiler. That initial support in Linux 5.3 was not without a few issues, but on Linux 5.5 the experience is in great shape with the stable Clang compiler.
Reiser5 File-System In Development - Adds Local Volumes With Parallel Scaling Out
Well, this is a hell of a way to surprisingly end the 2010s... Reiser5. Reiser5 brings a new format to the Reiser file-system and brings some new innovations to this file-system while keeping to its controversial name...
The AppArmor Performance Impact In 70+ Benchmarks On Linux 5.5 Git
With bisecting one of the big regressions in Linux 5.5 and finding the culprit to be an AppArmor change while using Hackbench as one of the most affected tests, I was curious to see what other workloads are impacted big by AppArmor on the current Linux 5.5 Git code. Here are 72 tests with the Threadripper 3970X on Linux 5.5 Git when toggling AppArmor...
Jolla Making Plans For Sailfish OS In 2020
Jolla has been working on Sailfish OS for nearly a decade now and for 2020 they are planning more improvements to their Linux-based smartphone OS as well as working to push Sailfish into new markets...
FSF-Approved Trisquel 9.0 Reaches Development Milestone Before Ringing In The New Year
Nearly two years after the release of Trisquel 8, the release of Trisquel 9 "Etiona" for this Free Software Foundation approved Linux distribution is quickly approaching. An alpha/development release of Trisquel 9 is available for testing...
Power Management Improvements Could Benefit Intel Server Performance In Linux 5.6
Some Intel server platforms could see better performance with the Linux 5.6 kernel cycle...
The Linux Kernel Highlights Of The 2010s From Torvalds' Sabbatical To Dealing With Vulnerabilities
Going along with our other end of year and decade recaps, here is a look back at the Linux kernel highlights for the 2010s...
The Experimental GCN 1.0 GPU Support Might Be Dropped From AMDGPU Linux Driver
By default the Linux kernel selects the aging Radeon DRM driver for GCN 1.0 "Southern Islands" and GCN 1.1 "Sea Islands" hardware (as well as all older ATI/AMD GPUs) while it's GCN 1.2 and newer that defaults to the modern AMDGPU kernel driver. But for years there has been experimental GCN 1.0/1.1 support available via kernel module options, but now for the original GCN GPUs that code is at risk of being dropped...
MLIR Lands In LLVM - Boosting LLVM For Heterogeneous Hardware, Machine Learning
Landing as a great Christmas present for LLVM developers interested in heterogeneous hardware compilation, TensorFlow and other machine learning use-cases was MLIR within the LLVM source tree...
Fwupd 1.3.6 Firmware Updater Released With Initial Windows Support
Fwupd 1.3.6 was released today for ending out a very successful year for this firmware updating utility that works in-step with the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) for allowing hardware firmware/BIOS updating on Linux systems...