ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Linux 6.13 To Allow Controlling Zero RPM Feature For Radeon RX 7000 Series GPUs

([Radeon] 7 November 10:19 AM EST Zero RPM Fan Control)

Sent out yesterday was an AMDGPU/AMDKFD kernel driver pull request with the last few feature additions and patches slated for the upcoming Linux 6.13 kernel merge window. Alongside other AMD kernel graphics driver updates, the new driver code with Radeon RX 7000 series RDNA3 graphics cards will finally allow controlling the zero RPM fan feature under Linux.


FreeBSD Reduces OS Support From 5 To 4 Years, Continues Collaboration With AMD

([BSD] 7 November 08:39 AM EST FreeBSD Q3-2024 Report)

The FreeBSD project issued today their Q3'2024 progress report to outline enhancements made to this open-source BSD operating system over the prior quarter.


Haiku Enjoyed A Busy October Implementing More Features

([Operating Systems] 7 November 06:42 AM EST Haiku OS)

The Haiku open-source operating system project inspired by BeOS has remained very active implementing more features and fixes as we approach the end of 2024.


Mesa RADV Driver Delivers Conformant Vulkan 1.3 Support For Old AMD GFX6/GFX7 GPUs

([Radeon] 7 November 06:56 AM EST Vulkan 1.3 Conformance)

While old Radeon GFX6/GFX7 era graphics processors are no longer actively supported by AMD on Windows and haven't been for quite a while, under Linux with the upstream open-source driver stack they remain supported and still enjoying improvements in large part from common code. The most recent fascinating aspect is the old AMD GFX6/GFX7 era GPUs seeing official Vulkan 1.3 support that has been deemed conformant by Khronos.


Mesa 24.3 Merges Vulkan FIFO Support On Wayland

([Mesa] 7 November 06:33 AM EST Vulkan FIFO Presentation Mode)

Yet another feature merging into Mesa 24.3 with the code branching (feature freeze) yet to take place is Vulkan FIFO presentation mode support under Wayland.


OpenCL Headers & SDK Updated For OpenCL 3.0.17

([Programming] 7 November 06:19 AM EST OpenCL 3.0.17)

Near the end of October OpenCL 3.0.17 was released as the newest maintenance update to this low-level compute API for cross-vendor GPUs and other accelerators. The OpenCL Headers and SDK have now been updated for the new revision.


AMD ROCm 6.2.4 Released With Radeon PRO V710 Support & Documentation Updates

([Radeon] 6 November 08:41 PM EST ROCm 6.2.4)

AMD ROCm 6.2.4 is out today as the newest point release for this Radeon and Instinct open-source GPU compute stack.


GIMP 3.2 Will Aim To Be Out Within One Year Of GIMP 3.0

([Free Software] 6 November 04:22 PM EST GIMP 3.2 One Year After GIMP 3.0)

Following the GIMP 3.0-RC1 tagging, the GIMP project has now put out their lengthy write-up outlining many of the new features to enjoy with this first release candidate of the much anticipated GIMP 3.0. Plus there is a few words about future releases when moving past the upcoming GIMP 3.0 stable.


Fresh Take On Linux Uncached Buffered I/O "RWF_UNCACHED" Nets 65~75% Improvement

([Linux Storage] 6 November 03:02 PM EST RWF_UNCACHED)

Linux I/O expert and block/IO_uring maintainer Jens Axboe of Meta has recently revisited his patches around uncached buffered I/O. Back in 2019 the "RWF_UNCACHED" effort was started by Axboe to address a throughput cliff in performance once the page cache fills up. That work faded away but Axboe recently took to crafting a set of fresh patches for implementing uncached buffered I/O and they are showing extremely promising results.


systemd 257-rc1 Released With A Ton Of New Features & Changes

([systemd] 6 November 12:47 PM EST systemd 257-rc1)

Systemd 257-rc1 is out today as a big feature update for this release that brings many new features and other refinements to this key piece of the Linux operating system stack.


AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Linux Performance: Zen 5 With 3D V-Cache

([Processors] 6 November 09:00 AM EST 59 Comments)

Ahead of tomorrow's availability of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor as the first Zen 5 CPU released with 3D V-Cache, today the review embargo lifts. Here is a look at how this 8-core / 16-thread Zen 5 CPU with 64MB of 3D V-Cache is performing under Ubuntu Linux compared to a variety of other Intel Core and AMD Ryzen desktop processors.


Intel Prepping Linux For SNC6 With Six Nodes Per L3 Cache

([Intel] 6 November 08:30 AM EST Intel Sub-NUMA Clustering SNC6)

Patches for the Linux kernel over the past week are preparing for an SNC6 sub-NUMA clustering mode. This is the first time I've seen patches or mentions of an SNC6 mode compared to SNC 1/2/3/4 modes with existing processors.


Mesa 24.3 Delivers Big Performance Win For Aging AMD Navi 10 GPUs

([Radeon] 6 November 06:56 AM EST Navi 10)

The upcoming Mesa 24.3 graphics driver stack will deliver a very nice performance win with the Radeon "RADV" Vulkan driver for aging RDNA1 "GFX10" graphics processors.


Lazy Preemption "PREEMPT_LAZY" Slated To Land In Linux 6.13

([Linux Kernel] 6 November 06:23 AM EST Linux Lazy Preemption)

Yet another exciting feature expected to be merged for the upcoming Linux 6.13 cycle is the introduction of the Lazy Preemption model.


Intel oneCCL 2021.14 Brings New Performance & Scalability Optimizations

([Intel] 6 November 05:59 AM EST oneCCL)

Intel's oneCCL open-source software that is the oneAPI Collective Communications Library focused on providing an efficient implementation of deep learning communication patterns is out with a new release.


cURL 8.11 Released With Official WebSockets Support

([Free Software] 6 November 06:09 AM EST cURL 8.11)

The cURL 8.11 release is now available for this widely-used open-source software library and CLI utility used for downloads and supporting a variety of network protocols for file transfers. Most notable with cURL 8.11 is sporting official WebSockets support.


GIMP 3.0 RC1 Released For Testing

([Free Software] 5 November 04:26 PM EST GIMP 3.0 RC1)

The long elusive GIMP 3.0 image editor that is a free software alternative to Adobe Photoshop has finally reached the release candidate phase of development.


Power Determinism Mode Still Proves Beneficial For AMD EPYC 9005 Performance

([Processors] 5 November 03:25 PM EST 2 Comments)

Typically in my launch-day Linux reviews of new AMD EPYC processors I try to include results both of the performance determinism (default) and power determinism modes available with these server processors since opting in to the power determinism mode can allow for additional performance uplift at the cost of slightly higher power costs. With the AMD EPYC 9575F / 9755 / 9965 benchmarks and review I didn't have a chance to complete all of the power determinism runs in time for that review, but for those curious about power vs. performance determinism modes with the 5th Gen AMD EPYC "Turin" processors, here is a side-by-side comparison.


Open-Source PowerVR Driver Being Extended For The Imagination BXS-4-64 MC1 GPU

([Hardware] 5 November 11:33 AM EST Imagination BXS-4-64 MC1)

Upstreamed at the start of the year was the Imagination PowerVR open-source DRM kernel driver for newer Imagination Rogue GPUs. That upstream kernel driver is now being extended to cover the Imagination BXS-4-64 MC1 GPU.


Linux 6.13 To Drop Fieldbus Just Five Years After Being Merged

([Hardware] 5 November 06:36 AM EST Removing Fieldbus)

Merged back in 2019 was the Fieldbus subsystem as a set of network protocols for real-time distributed control of automated industrial systems. But now five years later, Fieldbus is being removed from the mainline Linux kernel since the code hasn't been maintained.


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In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It
changes into a bird whose winds are like clouds filling the sky. When this
bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters.
This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull
making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with
the blue sky at its back, returns home.
The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands
it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears
its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he
does not know that the bird has come and gone.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"