Testing The AMD Heterogeneous Core Topology Linux Patches On Ryzen AI 300 Series

([AMD] 31 July 03:15 PM EDT Strix Point Heterogenous Core Topology)

Now that I am through with my testing of the initial Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and Ryzen AI 9 365 Linux performance benchmarking and support exploration, I've begun diving in to other areas of the Linux support/performance for these Zen 5 "Strix Point" SoCs. The area for a quick look today is with the yet-to-be-merged AMD Heterogeneous Core Topology patches.

ARM Linux Maintainer Drafts Deprecation Timeline For Old Boards/Features

([Arm] 31 July 02:07 PM EDT Dropping More Old Boards)

ARM Linux maintainer Arnd Bergmann laid out a proposal with deprecation timeline today for beginning to work toward removing many older ARM boards and obsolete features.

Mesa 24.2-rc3 Released With More Intel Xe2 Graphics Fixes

([Mesa] 31 July 01:35 PM EDT Mesa 24.2-rc3)

Mesa 24.2 is barreling towards its stable release in August while out today is the third weekly release candidate for this set of open-source OpenGL, Vulkan, and video acceleration drivers.

AmpereOne Aurora In Development With Up To 512 Cores, AmpereOne Prices Published

([Processors] 31 July 11:00 AM EDT 5 Comments)

Ampere Computing hosted an AmpereOne architecture briefing this week where more details were shared on their long talked about AArch64 server processors. This announcement finally included a SKU table with suggested pricing as well as talking up a next-gen "AmpereOne Aurora" offering for a processor with up to 512 cores and some newly-disclosed Ampere AI acceleration IP.

Xen 4.19 Released With New 9pfs Backend, Scales Up To 16,383 CPUs

([Virtualization] 31 July 10:20 AM EDT Xen Hypervisor 4.19)

The Xen Project has announced version Xen 4.19 of this open-source hypervisor that is rolling out security improvements, performance and scalability enhancements, and other refinements to this cross-architecture option for open-source virtualization.

Servo Web Engine Now Leverages Multiple CPU Cores For Rendering HTML Tables

([Free Software] 31 July 08:52 AM EDT Servo Engine)

The Servo project is out with their latest monthly status report to highlight advancements made on this open-source, Rust-written web layout engine.

Glibc Patch Being Reviewed For getrandom vDSO Support

([Programming] 31 July 06:48 AM EDT getrandom in the vDSO)

One of the many exciting features merged for Linux 6.11 is getrandom() in the vDSO for very fast yet secure random number generation. Now that the kernel bits have landed, it's on to making use of it in the GNU C Library and other libc implementations.

Linux Seeing Support For Another ~$230 ARM Handheld Game Console

([Hardware] 31 July 06:25 AM EDT GameForce Ace)

There's been no shortage of cheap, ARM-based handheld game consoles coming to market. Given Linux on Arm tending to work better than Windows and in keeping vendor costs to a minimum, they've tended to be running Linux or Android with various open-source games/emulators. Many of the vendors have kept their Linux support downstream while with time more of these gaming handheld consoles are seeing mainline Linux support. Yet another one being worked on for mainline Linux kernel support is the GameForce Ace.

Linux's Turbostat Utility Can Now Be Used For Reading Intel PMT Counters

([Linux Kernel] 31 July 06:16 AM EDT turbostat)

Merged on Sunday prior to tagging the first release candidate of Linux 6.11 were some last minute updates to Turbostat, the tool that lives within the kernel source tree and used for reporting CPU frequency and idle statistics along with other useful metrics. With Linux 6.11, Turbostat is gaining some new abilities.

SDL3 Library Adds A Built-In Snake Game

([Linux Gaming] 31 July 06:07 AM EDT SDL Snake Game)

For those enjoying the classic game Snake (Blockade) or rather wanting to learn about the SDL3 API to develop your own software using this cross-platform software/hardware abstraction library, a game of Snake has been added to the SDL3 repository to serve as a more full-featured example.

Intel Xe2 Lunar Lake & Battlemage Graphics Might Be Officially Supported With Linux 6.12

([Intel] 30 July 08:30 PM EDT Intel Xe Driver DRM-Next)

While the Linux 6.11 merge window ended just days ago, Intel engineers are already beginning to submit kernel graphics driver changes to the DRM-Next branch of material they want to get in for the Linux 6.12 cycle that will end out 2024. Notable is they are trying to wrap up the Xe2 graphics support for Lunar Lake and Battlemage discrete graphics so that the support can be exposed by default.

oneAPI Construction Kit 4.0 Brings RISC-V Host CPU Support

([Intel] 30 July 03:35 PM EDT oneAPI Construction Kit)

Last year the oneAPI Construction Kit was introduced by Intel-owned Codeplay Software for bringing SYCL to new hardware even for hardware outside of Intel's offerings. One of the early targets of this oneAPI Construction Kit support was for RISC-V processors and now with today's release of oneAPI Construction Kit 4.0 there is finally RISC-V host CPU support.

Intel Core Ultra "Lunar Lake" Launching 3 September

([Intel] 30 July 01:47 PM EDT Lunar Lake Launch Date)

With the AMD Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" laptops now shipping this week, Intel has announced that their Intel Core Ultra "Lunar Lake" processors as the successor to Meteor Lake will be formally launching on 3 September.

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

([Operating Systems] 30 July 12:39 PM EDT 19 Comments)

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.

Mesa's Freedreno Gallium3D Driver Lands Initial Adreno 700 Series Support

([Mesa] 30 July 10:36 AM EDT A7xx Support)

Since last year there's been support available in the MSM DRM kernel driver for Qualcomm's Adreno 700 series graphics processors. There's also been some Adreno 700 series support in TURNIP as the Mesa Vulkan driver for these newer Adreno GPUs. Now finally the Freedreno Gallium3D driver has merged initial Adreno 700 series support for the Mesa 24.3 release.

Google's AutoFDO & Propeller For The Linux Kernel Helps With Up To 5~10% Faster Performance

([Google] 30 July 08:25 AM EDT AutoFDO + Propeller Kernel)

Google engineer Rong Xu has proposed adding AutoFDO and Propeller support to the mainline Linux kernel for its Clang-based build as it can help the system performance improve in the up to 5~10% range.

AdaptiveCpp 24.06 Released As "The Fastest Heterogeneous C++ Compiler" - Beats CUDA

([Programming] 30 July 06:42 AM EDT AdaptiveCpp 24.06)

AdaptiveCpp as the open-source compiler formerly known as hypSYCL and Open SYCL is out with a new feature release for this C++ heterogeneous compiler supporting all major CPUs and GPUs.

Canonical Saw $251M In Revenue Last Year, Grew To More Than 1K Employees

([Ubuntu] 30 July 06:25 AM EDT Canonical 2023 Performance)

Ubuntu maker Canonical (Canonical Group Limited) recently filed their financial statements with UK's Companies House that offers a fresh look at their financial performance.

DreamWorks' OpenMoonRay 1.6 Open-Source Renderer Released

([Free Software] 30 July 06:07 AM EDT OpenMoonRay 1.6)

Two years ago DreamWorks Animation made the exciting decision that they would open-source their MoonRay renderer that's been used in production for a variety of animated feature films. That initial open-source drop took place last year as OpenMoonRay and since then it has continued to be improved as an open-source project.

AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 Benchmarks: The Fantastic Power Efficiency Of Zen 5

([Processors] 29 July 04:30 PM EDT 50 Comments)

As noted in yesterday's launch-day AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 review with 100+ benchmarks, I've also been testing an AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 Zen 5 laptop too. Here are those initial benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 as the 10-core / 20-thread laptop Zen 5 SoC. Like with the HX 370 testing, the Ryzen AI 9 365 continues to reinforce the great power efficiency uplift of Zen 5 as one of the most exciting advancements. In fact, for many benchmarks the Ryzen AI 9 365 was delivering even greater performance per Watt than the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.