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With the EXT4 file-system having been stabilized with the Linux 2.6.28 kernel, the Ubuntu developers are preparing to adopt this evolutionary Linux file-system update. EXT4 will not replace EXT3 as the default file-system until at least Ubuntu 9.10, but as of yesterday, Ubuntu 9.04 now has install-time support for EXT4. In this article we are looking at the EXT4 support within Ubuntu as well as providing a few Linux file-system benchmarks from a netbook-embedded solid-state drive. In this article we have published Ubuntu benchmarks of EXT4, EXT3, XFS, JFS, and ReiserFS file-systems.

Just a little more than a week after AMD openly released R600/700 GPU code to begin development of an open-source 3D driver for their ATI Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000 hardware, a disassembler and table dumper for their video BIOS abstraction layer has been released to developers. This tool called AtomDis was used early on in the development of the RadeonHD driver by Novell and is now being released under the GNU GPLv2 license to assist interested open-source developers or act as an instrument to those learning about graphics processor programming.

Fifteen months ago we exclusively showed off SplashTop from DeviceVM, which was an instant-on Linux environment embedded into ASUS motherboards and since then it has worked its way into products from other OEMs. DeviceVM continues to work on further refining SplashTop by adding in virtualization support and other features, along with a promised developer SDK. Phoenix Technologies, the company producing the BIOSes for many of the motherboards on the market, is today introducing their SplashTop competitor. HyperSpace is the Phoenix Technologies product being unveiled this morning with several distinct differences from SplashTop.

It seems that each and every week there are new netbooks that are introduced, but there are not many differences between most models. Some netbooks will have a slightly longer battery life, a different exterior, or a solid-state drive, but there are more similarities than differences. However, one of the latest companies to join the netbook bandwagon here in the United States has been Samsung with the introduction of the NC10. Is there anything special about this 10.2-inch Atom-powered netbook? We will tell you in this Linux review of the Samsung NC10.

Last quarter AMD introduced their "Shanghai" Opteron processors that join the ranks of Intel's Harpertown Xeon CPUs that are 45nm quad-core server/workstation parts. Initial reviews of these new AMD Opteron processors have been very positive, but how do these chips perform with Linux? In this article we have our hands on a few of the fastest Shanghais, the AMD Opteron 2384 clocked at 2.7GHz, as we see how well they compare to the older "Barcelona" Opteron processors.

With the number of netbooks on the market continuing to increase each month and more of these mobile devices switching to solid-state drives for their reliability, extended battery life, and faster performance, SSDs are becoming quite common and finding themselves meeting many Linux hosts. How though does the real-world performance differ between hard disk drives and solid-state drives on Linux? We have run several tests atop Ubuntu on a Samsung netbook with a HDD and SSD. In addition, we have also looked at the encryption performance using both types of drives.

Last year we had looked at The Greatest Linux Innovations Of 2007, and as this year ends, we have compiled a similar list of what we believe were some of the greatest Linux innovations or achievements of 2008. Among the innovations named this year were KDE 4, NetworkManager 0.7, new hardware companies standing behind open-source support, and the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix.

Since earlier this year we have been waiting for AMD to release documentation and/or code on the ATI R600 series concerning 3D acceleration so that the open-source Linux drivers can begin to support the newer ATI graphics processors. It has taken longer than expected for AMD to complete and release this information, but it's now available. AMD has released the fundamental Linux code needed to begin fostering the development of an open-source R600 3D driver. Furthermore, this code also concerns the latest R700 series of graphics processors! The microcode for the newest GPUs has also been released.

The Linux 2.6.28 kernel was released this past week in time for the holidays. This quarterly update to the Linux kernel brought the stabilization of the EXT4 file-system, the Graphics Execution Manager, a host of new drivers, and a variety of other updates. For some weekend benchmarking we had tested the latest Linux 2.6.28 kernel along with other recent kernels using the Phoronix Test Suite.

Subsequent to the introduction of the Graphics Execution Manager earlier this year, Intel had introduced a new acceleration architecture. UXA, or the UMA Acceleration Architecture, was developed as a temporary solution based upon the EXA architecture but with support for the kernel-driven GEM memory management. How though does the UXA performance compare to that of EXA? In this article we have ran some benchmarking looking at the Intel graphics performance.

Video acceleration APIs for Linux has been a hot topic recently with NVIDIA having introduced VDPAU last month (the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix) that brings PureVideo-like features to Linux with great results while it's already finding its way into MPlayer, FFmpeg, MythTV, Xine, and VLC. AMD has been working hard on XvBA (X-Video Bitstream Acceleration), but that has yet to be officially introduced. In the open-source realm there has been talk of extending XvMC to support video formats besides MPEG-2, but that hasn't yet amounted to anything. Today though another video API is now on scene with VA-API finally being implemented in MPlayer and FFmpeg.

The past year has brought several invasive changes to the Intel Linux graphics stack with the introduction of the Graphics Execution Manager for GPU memory management within the kernel, support for the Direct Rendering Infrastructure 2, and kernel mode-setting finally getting ready to enter the limelight. How though has the work this year affected the overall performance of Intel integrated graphics on Linux? In this article we have run a few benchmarks that show where the driver was at a few months ago and where it is today.

Last week our annual Linux Graphics Survey ended. There were over 14,000 submissions this year to the eleven questions we asked pertaining to X.Org, Linux desktop usage, and graphics hardware. In this article are all of the results from this year's survey.

Have you ever wondered on what operating system Java works the best? While by no means is it a conclusive multi-platform comparison, for this article we ran a number of Java benchmarks on both Windows Vista Premium and Ubuntu Linux to see how the Java Virtual Machine performance differs. In addition, when running Ubuntu we had tested Sun's official Java package as well as the OpenJDK alternative.

If you have wanted to get your hands on an Intel Atom system but aren't interested in the netbooks that are out there, it's now relatively easy to find compatible motherboards out there to build your own Intel Atom system. Some of these motherboards even come with an Atom CPU already installed. In this article we have our hands on the Jetway NC92-230-LF, which is a mini ITX motherboard that is pre-installed with an Intel Atom N230 and offers one PCI slot, one DDR2 slot, Gigabit Ethernet, and 6-channel audio.

Yesterday we had published our AMD Linux 2008 Year in Review where we had provided a recap of all major features introduced in their Linux driver over the past year as well as taking the time to re-benchmark every Catalyst driver released this year. We have been doing this process annually going back to 2005, and now it's time to look at the NVIDIA Linux driver releases from this year.

Last year when publishing our AMD Year in Review article there were numerous new features to account for, including but not limited to the new OpenGL driver, support for Compiz, and the AMD Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition. This year has been another interesting year for AMD's Linux efforts on both the open and closed fronts. We are focusing on their Catalyst driver efforts in this article, which has picked up support for CrossFire, is now capable of being overclocked with OverDrive, and AMD is now delivering same-day Linux product support. In this article we will recap some of the highlights from the Catalyst driver releases this year as well as set out on a benchmarking extravaganza.

Back in September we looked at the Intel Atom performance on a few Linux distributions using the ASUS Eee PC 901, but now with new stable releases of some of the most popular distributions out in the wild, we've decided to re-conduct these tests. We are using a slightly different Atom-based system this time and we are comparing the performance on Ubuntu 8.10, Fedora 10, Mandriva 2008, and OpenSuSE 11.1.

It was just eleven days ago that NVIDIA had released the 180.11 Beta Linux Driver, but in the wee hours of Saturday morning NVIDIA has pushed out a new beta driver. This driver contains a few fixes, support for new GPUs, and an updated implementation of the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix.

Just in time for the holidays is a new Nouveau Companion newsletter to update the community on the status of this open-source 2D/3D NVIDIA driver that is written by clean room reverse-engineering of NVIDIA's binary driver. It has been a while since Nouveau Companion 40, but there is still active work going into this X.Org driver. Among the topics covered in the 41st edition of the Nouveau Companion is kernel mode-setting, Gallium3D, layering GEM on top of TTM (similar to the GEM-ified TTM Radeon driver), and thermal monitoring code for the Nouveau driver.