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In this article we will be looking at the impact of CONFIG_NO_HZ/Dynamic Ticks, which will be found in the Linux 2.6.21 kernel. The option has been available as a patch for quite a while, but not until Linux 2.6.21-rc1 had it been merged into the upstream kernel. When enabled, there will only be timer ticks when they are needed. The end-user benefit is cooler-running processors and increased power savings. We have investigated this change with a notebook and desktop computer.

NVIDIA has stated over on NvNews that the next Linux display driver will introduce a new naming convention. With the 1.0-9XXX series coming to an end we once believed that NVIDIA would continue the series with the 2.0-XXXX driver. However, NVIDIA's Andy Ritger has stated that the series will continue with 100.XX.XX.

In this article we will be looking at the impact of CONFIG_NO_HZ/Dynamic Ticks, which will be found in the Linux 2.6.21 kernel. The option has been available as a patch for quite a while, but not until Linux 2.6.21-rc1 had it been merged into the upstream kernel. When enabled, there will only be timer ticks when they are needed. The end-user benefit is cooler-running processors and increased power savings. We have investigated this change with a notebook and desktop computer.

With Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu each deploying a different desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, and Xfce respectively), how do each of these distributions compare performance-wise? We have taken two systems -- one with dual Intel Clovertown processors and the other an AMD Sempron -- and tested out each of these distributions in some of our commonly used Linux benchmarks to see how the performance truly stacks up. In this article we will be presenting part one of our results.

David Airlie has mentioned to me this week that a new reverse engineering group has begun work on the ATI/AMD R500 series. David is not taking part in this group (due to existing NDAs with ATI), but this project is current led by Jerome Glisse. Jerome was one of the open-source r300 drivers, and he also has another one or two others helping out...

Last month with the 8.33.6 release we had seen the first signs of Radeon X2000 (R600) product support. The AMD Radeon Xpress 1250 IGP (both Intel and AMD processor models) are supported by today's driver. Additional work has gone into the 8.34.8 drivers with this release to prepare for the Radeon X2000 launch shortly. More information will be available shortly.

Since last month's general availability of Microsoft Windows Vista, NVIDIA has introduced the Forceware 100.XX series. While we have yet to see any major NVIDIA Linux developments in 2007, we have decided to take one final look at this most recent driver series. In this article, we are retesting the 1.0-9626, 1.0-9629, 1.0-9631, and 1.0-9746 Linux display drivers. We have also added the NVIDIA 1.0-9751 display driver to the mix; if you've never seen the driver we will tell you in this article where you can get it. We are also shedding the first light on what will likely become the NVIDIA 2.0-XXXX display driver for Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD.

The release of Fedora 7 has now been delayed. This new delay pushes the release of Fedora 7 back nearly a month - from the end of April to now the end of May 2007. None of the upcoming Fedora 7 test releases have yet been pushed back, but now there will be a fourth test release for Fedora 7...

The last time Phoronix had taken a thorough look at Intel's Linux display drivers was last October when we had shared our initial performance figures for the GMA 3000 integrated graphics processor found on the Q965 Express. Testing at that time was only about two months after Intel had launched their new open-source Linux graphics website along with support for the 965 Express Chipset. With more and more readers inquiring about Intel's open-source graphics offerings, we have decided to take another look at the GMA 3000 performance. In this article we look at the GMA 3000 Q965 once again and compare it against the ATI Radeon X300SE using the most recent open-source drivers.

Since the death of Mandrake we have only used Mandriva Linux once or twice a year, but with the first beta now out for 2007.1 we decided to give it another go. New in Mandriva Linux 2007.1 is GNOME 2.17, Firefox 2.0, and much more. There are some pretty nifty features found inside Mandriva Linux 2007.1 Beta 1, and it does look as if it will be a hopeful year for this distribution.

Moments ago hitting the ubuntu-announce-list is word that the upcoming 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" release will not include the closed-source ATI and NVIDIA display drivers by default. There was much controversy behind this decision of whether to include the ATI and NVIDIA binary blobs and enable them by default; so that its users can immediately benefit from Composite and desktop effects. Like existing releases, the proprietary video drivers will be easily available through their repositories, but they will NOT be activated by default.

With today's new KateOS Live 3.2 release it finally included a new installer. The new KateOS installer is graphical (a first for the KateOS project) and should be a huge improvement over its text-based installer for new (and even existing) users. I couldn't help but to try out the new KateOS Live 3.2 Beta, so in this blog entry I have a few thoughts to share about this new installer.

SLAX is one of our favorite mini Linux LiveCD distributions so when SLAX 6.0.0 Pre 3 recently came out we couldn't help but to try out the new SLAX 6. New in this third pre-release of the SLAX 6.0 LiveCD is the Linux 2.6.20 kernel, bootable LiveUSB support in both Linux and Windows, udev replaces hotplug, full sound support with ALSA 1.0.14, NTFS read and write support, and more.

I received an email this afternoon from a Phoronix reader and fan that I found worth sharing, along with my response.

Last October we had compared the performance of the open-source R300 display driver against the closed-source fglrx driver for ATI Radeon graphics cards. In that comparison a Mobility Radeon X300 was used with X.Org 7.1, but we have decided to take another look at this driver comparison under X.Org 7.2. In this last comparison, the fglrx binary blob had greatly outperformed the open-source driver. While the fglrx driver remains faster, has the performance delta between these two drivers decreased?

Over the weekend a blizzard has hit Michigan causing sub-zero temperatures, inches of snow, and zealous winds. This winter weather has caused the closing of shopping centers and community activities; public transportation systems and the Gerald R. Ford International Airport have also come to a halt. However, we took this opportunity to make the best of it with natural sub-zero overclocking. With the Abit AW9D i975X motherboard, an Intel Pentium 4 processor, 2GB of OCZ's Flex XLC PC2-9200 memory, and cooling provided by Mother Nature, we set off on a spontaneous overclocking adventure. Have you ever seen a motherboard in a snow-bank? We sure have.

Coming across this Digg article yesterday afternoon I found many of the comments to be quite inaccurate (and in some cases comical). A majority of the comments consisted of users bashing the fglrx drivers by typing a variety of obscenities. Those that had bothered to explain themselves were mostly disturbed due to the lack of Composite and Beryl/Compiz support. But does this really equate to the driver being evil and ATI/AMD not caring about their customers?

Since our Nouveau: A First Look article last month, new developments continue to come out of the Nouveau camp. Among the changes in the past month is glxgears now working on NVIDIA NV4x hardware, the pledge drive now being completed, and the Fedora Project announcing its intent for including Nouveau in the upcoming Fedora 7 release.

Kurumin Linux is a distribution we had never heard of prior to today's encounter. The latest Kurumin release, Light 7.0, is a mini LiveCD that is targeted for Brazilian users and is based on Debian/Knoppix. This mini LiveCD is sized at 182MB while featuring the full KDE desktop along with plenty of extra software.

ClarkConnect, IPCop, m0n0wall, and Smoothwall are among the Linux distributions currently available that are targeted for use as a firewall or network server. However, shortly another contender will be launching into this arena and that is the Open Linux Router.