With the recent NVIDIA 550.54.14 Linux driver release the R550 series is now out as stable. One of the prominent changes with the NVIDIA R550 Linux driver is bringing the GeForce and workstation GPU support up to "CERTIFIED" quality when using NVIDIA's open kernel modules that are distributed as part of their driver package. Previously the open-source (out-of-tree) kernel modules were just certified for their data center GPUs while now they are basically acknowledging that they are in good shape too for GeForce and workstation products. In this article are some benchmarks of the open and proprietary kernel driver options of the NVIDIA R550 Linux driver.

While Ubuntu 24.04 LTS won't be officially out until the back-half of April, here is an early look at how the Intel Xeon Scable "Emerald Rapids" performance is looking right now compared to Ubuntu 23.10 and the current Ubuntu 22.04 LTS series in a variety of benchmarks. As largely expected with the software updates, the new Ubuntu 24.04 LTS will help achieve greater server/HPC performance on recent Intel processors.

The AMD P-State CPU frequency scaling driver works with Zen 2 and newer processors supporting ACPI Collaborative Processor Performance Controls (CPPC) but to date this hasn't worked for Threadripper 3000 series processors with the TRX40 chipset. That though is finally being fixed up with Linux 6.9 thanks to a one-line code change...

Depending upon how Linus Torvalds is feeling today, Linux 6.8 could debut today as stable and in turn mark the opening of the Linux 6.9 merge window... Otherwise it will be punted off by one week. In any event, there's a lot of interesting work queuing for Linux 6.9 as shared in today's preview...

Linus Torvalds has gone ahead and released Linux 6.8 as stable today rather than drawing this cycle into overtime...

A number of x86-related pull requests were already submitted today for kicking off the new Linux 6.9 merge window. With the x86/cpu pull for this new kernel cycle there is just one patch and it's for slightly easing future AMD Zen processor enablement under Linux...

Igalia continues maintaining the Broadcom V3D open-source graphics driver code that is used by the Raspberry Pi single board computers. With a new patch series posted today for the V3D DRM driver, support for Super Pages is enabled to help with enhancing the graphics performance. In many benchmarks having Super Pages can enhance the performance by a few percent but in some extreme cases can be 19~42% faster...

While Linux 6.8 carries some elements of Zen 5 CPU support, more upstream Linux enablement for the next-generation AMD processors remains ongoing. Sent out this morning were the initial patches around AMD Zen 5 performance monitoring and events for the perf subsystem...

The x86/core changes were submitted today for the now-open Linux 6.9 merge window. Among other changes, the x86 CPU security mitigation options within the Linux kernel Kconfig have been adjusted where appropriate to make more clear the options/features are for security mitigations...

The Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release next month will roll out initial support in its server installer for being able to handle root file-system setups on NVMe-over-TCP scenarios for remote drives...

GNU Linux-libre 6.8-gnu is out as the newest downstream kernel variety endorsed by the Free Software Foundation that takes the upstream Linux kernel but does away with proprietary module support and stripping out drivers/functionality contingent upon binary-only microcode/firmware and other elements not deemed up to their free software standards...

Intel this morning released Continuous Profiler as open-source, a software solution developed by Intel Granulate for aiming to help boost CPU performance...

The in-development Linux 6.9 kernel is finally landing support for AMD Preferred Core as part of the power management updates for this mid-2024 kernel release...

SUSE's David Sterba sent out the Btrfs updates today for the Linux 6.9 merge window. Besides stabilization and bug fixes there are also some minor performance optimizations to see with this next kernel...

This is their LLVM/Clang-based shader compiler for compiling HLSL programs into the DirectX Intermediate Language (DXIL) that can then be fed to DirectX GPU drivers from the different vendors. While Microsoft Windows is obviously the main focus, today's update does improve the Linux build support...

After two years of talking about Intel FRED as Flexible Return and Event Delivery for overhauling how transitions are done between privilege levels (CPU rings), the support code was finally in good shape for merging now with the Linux 6.9 kernel...

A "request for comments" patch series was posted on Monday for a new dynamic kernel stacks feature for Linux. Early testing has shown the potential for significant memory savings...

Nearly one year ago Intel published the X86S specification (formerly stylized as "X86-S") for simplifying the Intel architecture by removing support for 16-bit and 32-bit operating systems. X86S is a big step forward with dropping legacy mode, 5-level paging improvements, and other modernization improvements for x86_64. With the Linux 6.9 kernel more x86S bits are in place for this ongoing effort...

An interesting anecdote was mentioned as part of the x86/misc changes queued for the Linux 6.9 kernel: on some unnamed AMD systems, NMI debug messages were too excessive that they actually slowed down the systems...