With the third quarter drawing to a close, here's a look back at the most popular Linux/open-source related content for the quarter. This quarter there's been more than 730 news articles and 50 Linux hardware reviews / featured benchmark articles all written by your's truly covering a range of areas.

It was an eventful quarter with the launch of the AMD Ryzen 9000 series "Zen 5" desktop processors along with the Ryzen AI 300 laptop processors. All the interesting areas to benchmark there generated a lot of interest paired with the superior Linux support. On the software side a range of Linux kernel activity also captivated readers.

Below is a look at the most popular reviews and the most popular news for Q3. As always if you enjoy reading all of the content on Phoronix please consider [1]joining Phoronix Premium or at least not using any ad-blocker when browsing this site due to the difficult times.

[2]AMD Ryzen 9 9950X & Ryzen 9 9900X Deliver Excellent Linux Performance

Last Wednesday was the review embargo for the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X Zen 5 desktop processors that proved to be very exciting for Linux workloads from developers to creators to AVX-512 embracing AI and HPC workloads. Today the review embargo lifts on the Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X and as expected given the prior 6-core/8-core tests: these new chips are wild! The Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X are fabulous processors for those engaging in heavy real-world Linux workloads with excellent performance uplift and stunning power efficiency.

[3]AMD Ryzen 5 9600X & Ryzen 7 9700X Offer Excellent Linux Performance

This could quite well be my simplest review in the past twenty years of Phoronix. The AMD Ryzen 9000 series starting with the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X launching tomorrow are some truly great desktop processors. The generational uplift is very compelling, even in single-threaded Linux workloads shooting ahead of Intel's 14th Gen Core competition, across nearly 400 benchmarks these new Zen 5 desktop CPUs impress, and these new Zen 5 desktop processors are priced competitively. I was already loving the Ryzen 7000 series performance on Linux with its AVX-512 implementation and performing so well across hundreds of different Linux workloads but now with the AMD Ryzen 9000 series, AMD is hitting it out of the ball park. That paired with the issues Intel is currently experiencing for the Intel Core 13th/14th Gen CPUs and the ~400 benchmark results makes this a home run for AMD on the desktop side with only some minor Linux caveats.

[4]Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu 24.04 Linux Performance For The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X

With all of my AMD Ryzen 9900X and 9950X Linux benchmarking and Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X reviews as well, many have wondered if AMD Zen 5 is just really great on Linux, if Windows 11 is in particularly poor shape for these new AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors, if it's just the different/diverse benchmarks being run, or simply why are these new desktop CPUs running so well on Linux but less so with Windows?

[5]Intel Continues To Show AMD The Importance Of Software Optimizations: 16% More Ryzen 9 9950X Performance

As part of my ongoing AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Linux testing, last week I provided a look at the AVX-512 benefits to Zen 5 and also the Windows vs. Linux performance for the Ryzen 9 9950X. For sharing today is a look at multiple Linux distributions up and running on the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) desktop. Among the distributions in the mix are Intel's Clear Linux distribution that is optimally tuned for maximum x86_64 Linux performance and once again even on AMD hardware shows the significant benefits to a well-tuned Linux software stack.

[6]AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370: 100+ Benchmarks Validate Zen 5's Captivating Power Efficiency & Performance

With the AMD Zen 5 generation, the timing is interesting where it's not the desktop processors launching first but happens to be in the form of AMD Ryzen AI 300 series laptops. With the last minute delay of the Ryzen 900 series by 1~2 weeks, the embargo lift for the Ryzen AI 300 series is timed for this Sunday morning where I can now present the first AMD Zen 5 Linux benchmark results. And with being the first Zen 5 chip in my lab, I have been pushing it hard... Here is an extensive look at the ASUS Zenbook S 16 I received with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 current flagship SoC compared to a variety of other AMD and Intel laptop models. The focus was on both the raw performance and the package performance-per-Watt for the overall power efficiency of this Zen 5 SoC. And with it being the first Zen 5 hardware in the lab, I didn't limit the selection to just conventional laptop workloads but also explored the performance characteristics for various other workloads of interest to diverse Linux users and for an idea of the HX 370 potential or similar Zen 5 chips appearing in thin client / edge / IoT type devices. This initial taste of AMD Zen 5 has me extremely excited about the performance potential of the upcoming Ryzen 9000 series and EPYC Turin processors.

[7]An Initial Benchmark Of Bcachefs vs. Btrfs vs. EXT4 vs. F2FS vs. XFS On Linux 6.11

A number of Phoronix readers have been requesting a fresh re-test of the experimental Bcachefs file-system against other Linux file-systems on the newest kernel code. Your wish has been granted today with a fresh round of benchmarking across Bcachefs, Btrfs, EXT4, F2FS, and XFS using the Linux 6.11-rc2 kernel. This round of testing was carried out on the newly-released Solidigm D7-PS1010 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs that offer very speedy performance for modern Linux desktops and servers.

[8]Quantifying The AVX-512 Performance Impact With AMD Zen 5 - Ryzen 9 9950X Benchmarks

With the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X Linux review out of the way yesterday, today's benchmarking of the Ryzen 9000 series is looking closely at the AVX-512 performance impact. With the Ryzen 9000 series the Zen 5 cores have a full 512-bit data-path compared to the "double pumped" 256-bit data path found in the Zen 4 processors as well as the Strix Point SKUs. In this article is an AVX-512 enabled versus disabled comparison for not only the Ryzen 9 9950X but also the prior generation Ryzen 9 7950X and looking too at the CPU power use, thermals, and peak frequency when engaging a variety of AVX-512 workloads.

[9]AMD Zen 4 vs. Intel Core Ultra 7 "Meteor Lake" In 400+ Benchmarks On Linux 6.10

In part for preparing for upcoming Linux testing of AMD Ryzen AI 300 series laptops, I've been re-benchmarking various Intel/AMD laptops around the lab at Phoronix. In today's article is a fresh look at how the existing AMD Zen 4 laptop performance in the form of the popular Framework 13 and Framework 16 laptops is competing with the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H "Meteor Lake" SoC while using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and upgrading to the latest Linux 6.10 development kernel as well as the newest Mesa open-source graphics driver support.

[10]Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance For The AMD Ryzen AI 9 365

After seeing how the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 Zen 5 Strix Point performance is under Linux against a range of other Intel/AMD laptops, the next obvious question is... how does this compare to Windows? In this article is an initial look at the Windows 11 versus Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Linux performance for the same AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 SoC within an ASUS Zenbook S16 and running the same benchmarks in looking at the out-of-the-box performance difference.

[11]AMD Ryzen 7000/8000 Series vs. 14th Gen Intel Core CPU Performance On Linux 6.10 With 400+ Benchmarks

In preparation for upcoming CPU launches I have been spending the past month re-testing the various Intel Core and AMD Ryzen current generation processors on the very latest Linux software stack and latest system BIOS along with some updated and new benchmarks. For those wanting a fresh look at how the current AMD Ryzen 7000 and 8000 series processors are competing with 14th Gen Intel Core (Raptor Lake Refresh) processors, this article is for you with 18 processors and 443 benchmarks being carried out while using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and upgrading to the Linux 6.10 development kernel.

And the most popular news for Q3-2024:

[12]One Of The Rust Linux Kernel Maintainers Steps Down - Cites "Nontechnical Nonsense"

One of the several Rust for Linux kernel maintainers has decided to step away from the project. The move is being driven at least in part due to having to deal with increased "nontechnical nonsense" raised around Rust programming language use within the Linux kernel.

[13]Linus Torvalds Begins Expressing Regrets Merging Bcachefs

There's been some Friday night kernel drama on the Linux kernel mailing list... Linus Torvalds has expressed regrets for merging the Bcachefs file-system and an ensuing back-and-forth between the file-system maintainer.

[14]Linus Torvalds Addresses His Latest ARM64 Annoyance: Installing Compressed Kernel Images

Following Linus Torvalds receiving an Ampere Altra Max workstation from Ampere Computing, he's been dabbling more with ARM64 now that it affords him more AArch64 compute power than his Apple Silicon powered MacBook. Torvalds kicked off the Linux 6.11 merge window by landing some of his own code to further enhance the ARM64 kernel and as we approach the end of the v6.11 merge window this weekend, he's merged some more ARM64 code.

[15]Intel Discontinues High-Speed, Open-Source H.265/HEVC Encoder Project

As part of Intel's Scalable Video Technology (SVT) initiative they had been developing SVT-HEVC as a BSD-licensed high performance H.265/HEVC video encoder optimized for Xeon Scalable and Xeon D processors. But recently they've changed course and the project has been officially discontinued.

[16]Linux Will Be Able To Boot ~0.035 Seconds Faster With One Line Kernel Patch

The Linux kernel itself can already boot quite fast but with a simple one-line patch another ~0.035 seconds will be able to be shaved off the boot time.

[17]Open-Source AMD GPU Implementation Of CUDA "ZLUDA" Has Been Taken Down

Back in February of this year you may recall the interesting news that was announced on Phoronix that AMD Quietly Funded A Drop-In CUDA Implementation Built On ROCm: It's Now Open-Source. That open-source ZLUDA code for AMD GPUs has been available since AMD quit funding the developer earlier this year. But now the code has been retracted. It's not from NVIDIA legal challenges but rather AMD reversing course on allowing it to be open-source.

[18]Linus Torvalds Unconvinced By getrandom() In The vDSO

While there were plans of adding getrandom() in the vDSO with the upcoming Linux 6.11 merge window to speed up user-space random number generation access, Linus Torvalds is unconvinced by the work and intends to reject any pull request with it for Linux 6.11.

[19]KDE Plasma 6.2 To Support libinput's Auto-Scrolling Feature

It's been a busy start to July with KDE developers tackling more features for Plasma 6.2 while continuing to deliver fixes to the modern KDE Plasma desktop stack.

[20]EXT4 Has A Very Nice Performance Optimization For Linux 6.11

With the maturity of the EXT4 file-system it's not too often seeing any huge feature additions for this commonly used Linux file-system but there's still the occasional wild performance optimization to uncover... With Linux 6.11 the EXT4 file-system can see upwards of a 20% performance boost in some scenarios.

[21]Unauthenticated RCE Flaw With CVSS 9.9 Rating For Linux Systems Affects CUPS

There's been much speculation since this morning over a reported "severe" unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) flaw affecting Linux systems that carries a CVSS 9.9.9 score... The embargo has now lifted with the details on this nasty issue.

[22]Linux 6.12 To Optionally Display A QR Code During Kernel Panics

Submitted today via DRM-Misc-Next to DRM-Next for staging ahead of the Linux 6.12 merge window in mid-September is optional support for displaying a QR code within the DRM Panic handler infrastructure when a Linux kernel panic occurs.

[23]Linux's DRM Panic "Screen of Death" Sees Patches For QR Code Error Messages

Linux 6.10 introduces DRM Panic for providing a new panic screen in case of kernel errors and situations where the VT support may be disabled. This new kernel functionality is akin to Windows' Blue Screen of Death or thanks to open-source can be adapted to take on other forms such as a black screen of death and conveying monochrome logos rather than ASCII art. New patches provide for the ability to show QR codes of error messages within the DRM Panic screens.

[24]COSMIC Desktop Very Close To Alpha Release, Adds Compositor Multi-Threading

System76 continues working vigorously on COSMIC, their Rust-written Linux desktop environment being written for Pop!_OS and to see availability on other Linux distributions as well. They are finishing up last minute changes before putting the flag on a COSMIC alpha release.

[25]Firefox 128 Now Available With A Fix For A 25 Year Old Bug Report

Mozilla Firefox 128.0 is now available for download ahead of the official release announcement due out in the coming hours.

[26]KDE Again Operated At A Loss During 2023

KDE e.V. announced the availability today of their annual report for covering 2023. While they made a lot of accomplishments and worked a lot on KDE Plasma 6 development, it was another year they unfortunately operated in the red funding wise.

[27]Microsoft's WSL2 Transitions To Linux 6.6 LTS Kernel

The kernel powering Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) has long been using the Linux 5.15 LTS kernel while finally it's now upgraded past that aging long-term support kernel and onto the current Linux 6.6 LTS series.

[28]AMD & FreeBSD Begin Collaborating Over OS Improvements

The FreeBSD open-source operating system project published their Q2'2024 status report that outlines some interesting work happening to this leading BSD project.

[29]GIMP 3.0 Enters String Freeze, Inching Closer To Release

Today marks the beginning of the string freeze for the long-awaited GIMP 3.0 open-source image editor release as one of the leading free software alternatives to Adobe Photoshop.

[30]Meta Sees ~5% Performance Gains To Optimizing The Linux Kernel With BOLT

For years Meta/Facebook has been exploring using BOLT with the Linux kernel to optimize the layout of the Linux kernel binary. Since BOLT was upstreamed into LLVM, they've continued work around BOLT'ing the kernel. There is now a public guide for carrying out a BOLT-optimized Linux kernel build and roughly 5% better system performance to expect from such an optimized kernel.

[31]KDE Developers Tackle The Five Most Common Plasma Crashes

KDE developer Nate Graham is out with a summer time update that highlights the interesting improvements made to the KDE desktop and related apps over the past two weeks.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/phoronix-premium

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-9950x-9900x

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/review/ryzen-9600x-9700x

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/review/ryzen-9950x-windows11-ubuntu

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-os-amd-ryzen9-9950x

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-ai-9-hx-370

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-611-filesystems

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-zen5-avx-512-9950x

[9] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-610-amd-zen4-intel-meteorlake

[10] https://www.phoronix.com/review/windows-linux-ryzen-ai

[11] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-intel-core-linux610

[12] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Rust-Linux-Maintainer-Step-Down

[13] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linus-Torvalds-Bcachefs-Regrets

[14] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Torvalds-ARM64-Compress-Kernel

[15] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Discontinues-SVT-HEVC

[16] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Faster-Boot-One-Line-ACPI

[17] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-ZLUDA-CUDA-Taken-Down

[18] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linus-Torvalds-No-Random-vDSO

[19] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Plasma-6.2-Auto-Scrolling

[20] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.11-EXT4

[21] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-CVSS-9.9-Rating

[22] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.12-DRM-Panic-QR-Code

[23] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-DRM-Panic-QR-Codes

[24] https://www.phoronix.com/news/COSMIC-July-Updates

[25] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Firefox-128-Released

[26] https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-2023-Report

[27] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-WSL2-Linux-6.6-Kernel

[28] https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-Q2-2024-Improvements

[29] https://www.phoronix.com/news/GIMP-3.0-String-Freeze

[30] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-BOLT-5p-Performance

[31] https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-Fixes-5-Most-Common-Crashes