While a shorter month, there were still 263 original articles published on Phoronix during February. A lot of exciting hardware in the lab to notable open-source milestones and interesting kernel developments made for an interesting month besides the usual battle over ad-blockers and pressure on the web publishing industry.
Below is a look at the most popular Phoronix content during February 2025 on Phoronix. There was a fun mix of new hardware and software to keep things exciting still as we approach the 21st anniversary of Phoronix in June for covering the Linux hardware scene. But due to the ongoing state of the web (ad) industry and ad-block usage, it remains a tough and unfortunate space. As always you can do your share by viewing the site without any ad-blocker. Those wanting to help out as well can join Phoronix Premium to make the site ad-free, multi-page articles on a single page, native dark mode, and other features while supporting the site. Tips via PayPal and Stripe are always graciously accepted.
Thanks for your support and here was the exciting featured hardware articles of the past month:
AMD Ryzen 9000 vs. Intel Core Ultra Arrow Lake On Linux For Q1-2025 In ~400 Benchmarks
For those wondering how the latest AMD Ryzen 9000 “Zen 5” series and Intel Core Ultra Series 2 “Arrow Lake” desktop processors are battling it out on Linux, here are some fresh benchmarks on Ubuntu Linux with the latest software updates as well as the newest system BIOS updates for a fresh, all-new look at these Intel Core Ultra and AMD Ryzen desktop CPUs on Linux.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Through GeForce RTX 5080/5090 GPU Compute Performance
Complementing the recent Linux GPU benchmarks of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 and GeForce RTX 5090 looking at both the Linux / Steam Play gaming performance as well as GPU compute and other areas, in today’s testing is a wide multi-generation look seeing how the NVIDIA GeForce performance has evolved going back to the GeForce GTX 980 Maxwell GPUs up through the newest GeForce RTX 5080/5090 graphics cards.
Healthy Competition With GCC 15 vs. LLVM Clang 20 Performance On AMD Zen 5
In the recent discussion over the GNU Gold linker being deprecated, there was the usual LLVM vs. GCC compiler/toolchain debate. Fortunately, with recently working on some initial benchmarks of the GCC 15 compiler I was following that up with some fresh LLVM Clang compiler comparison metrics on the same AMD Zen 5 hardware.
GCC 15 Compiler Showing Off Nice Performance Improvements On AMD Zen 5
With the GCC 15 compiler having progressed to its final stage of development prior to the GCC 15.1 stable release in the likely March~April time frame, I’ve begun testing the updated GNU Compiler Collection on some test systems. Overall GCC 15 is looking nice and on AMD Zen 5 “znver5” in particular seeing some solid gains over GCC 14. Here are some initial performance benchmarks of the GCC 15 compiler.
SMT Remains Very Advantageous For 5th Gen AMD EPYC Performance
After recently re-visiting the AMD EPYC 9005 series AVX-512 performance, I followed up with some fresh SMT benchmarks looking at the performance benefits and power of toggling Simultaneous Multi-Threading on the 5th Gen AMD EPYC “Turin” hardware. Here are some fresh numbers looking at the SMT performance with AMD Zen 5 server processors.
Benchmarks: Excellent Power Efficiency With 5th Gen AMD EPYC Using amd-pstate & Power Profiles
The AMD EPYC 9005 “Turin” processors that launched last year offer excellent performance and power efficiency out-of-the-box. For those wanting to pursue maximum power efficiency and running in the most optimal configuration for performance-per-Watt, AMD EPYC BIOS tunables as well as recent Linux kernel driver improvements can help in driving even greater efficiency. Today’s article is a look at the impact of the AMD P-State driver usage and options with recent kernel versions as well as the Power Profile Selection BIOS option for the impact on 5th Gen EPYC performance and power efficiency.
Linux 6.14 Features Include The AMDXDNA Ryzen AI Driver, NTSYNC, Uncached Buffered I/O & Much More
Now that the Linux 6.14 merge window wrapped up this past weekend with the release of Linux 6.14-rc1, here is a recap of all the great new features, hardware enablement, and other improvements to find with this kernel.
ARCTIC Freezer 4U-SP5 Provides Effective Cooling For AMD EPYC 9004/9005 CPUs
Along with the recently reviewed ARCTIC Freezer 4U-M for Ampere Altra, ARCTIC Cooling had also recently sent over their ARCTIC Freezer 4U-SP5 heatsink for cooling AMD EPYC 9004/9005 server processors within 4U rackmount height requirements. This cooler does a very good job at keeping even 400 Watt processors running well.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080/5090 Performance With Neat Video 6 On Linux
Last week NeatLab released Neat Video 6 as the newest version of their video engine to reduce noise and enhance video quality that can be used with the likes of DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut, and Premiere Pro software. Neat Video 6 features a faster render engine, optimized CPU + GPU performance, enhanced memory management, and other improvements. Neat Video 6 continues to support Linux natively when it comes to DaVinci Resolve usage as well as various OFX hosts like Natron / Flame / Mistika / Fusion Studio / Nuke. As they also updated their NeatBench benchmark, I was curious to see how the performance of Neat Video 6 is for the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Blackwell GPUs.
AMD EPYC Turin Power Profile Selection Impact On Performance & Efficiency
Last week I published an article looking at the power efficiency of 5th Gen AMD EPYC “Turin” using the modern AMD P-State driver and the Power Profile options. The AMD P-State driver being used by default now for the EPYC 9005 series processors on Linux 6.12+ and paired with Power Profile option tuning can deliver a nice boost to server energy efficiency with only modest impact to the performance. Today’s article are some complementary numbers I carried out recently on a Supermicro server looking at more of the Power Profile Selection options.
And the most popular news from February:
Karol Herbst Steps Down As Nouveau Maintainer Due To Linux Kernel’s Toxic Environment
Karol Herbst has been a Nouveau driver developer for over a decade working on this open-source, reverse-engineered NVIDIA Linux graphics driver. He went on to become employed by Red Hat. While he’s known more these days for his work on Mesa and the Rusticl OpenCL driver for it, he’s still remained a maintainer of the Nouveau kernel driver. But today he announced he’s resigning as a Nouveau driver maintainer due to differences with the upstream Linux kernel developer community.
Greg Kroah-Hartman Makes A Compelling Case For New Linux Kernel Drivers To Be Written In Rust
The debate over the Linux kernel’s Rust programming language policy continues… While some kernel maintainers are against it, Linus Torvalds has reportedly said he would override maintainers that may be against honoring Rust code. Linux’s second-in-command Greg Kroah-Hartman has also been a big proponent of Rust kernel code. He’s crafted another Linux kernel mailing list post today outlining the benefits of Rust and encouraging new kernel code/drivers to be in Rust rather than C.
Asahi Linux Lead Developer Hector Martin Steps Down As Upstream Apple Silicon Maintainer
Following arguments on the Linux kernel mailing list the past few days over some Linux kernel maintainers being against the notion of Rust code in the mainline Linux kernel and trying to avoid it and very passionate views over the Linux kernel development process, Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin has removed himself from being an upstream maintainer of the ARM Apple code.
FLAC 1.5 Finally Delivers Multi-Threaded Encoding
FLAC 1.5 is out today as the newest feature update to the software built around the Free Lossless Audio Codec.
Rust-Written Zlib-rs Is Not Only Safer But Now Outperforming Zlib C Implementations
Zlib-rs as a Rust programming language implementation of the Zlib file format for better safety is now beginning to outperform the C implementations of the widely-used Zlib.
Linux Finally Introducing A Standardized Way Of Informing User-Space Over Hung GPUs
The upcoming Linux 6.15 kernel is set to finally introduce a standardized way of informing user-space of GPUs becoming hung or otherwise unresponsive. This is initially wired up for AMD and Intel graphics drivers on Linux so the user can be properly notified of problems and/or user-space software taking steps to address the hung/unresponsive graphics processor.
Christoph Hellwig Steps Down From One Of His Kernel Roles Following Rust Drama
Following the recent Rust drama within the Linux kernel that came out in part because Christoph Hellwig expressed objections to Rust bindings for the DMA mapping helpers that he is a maintainer of, Hellwig has now stepped down as one of the DMA mapping helper maintainers.
New Apple Silicon Co-Maintainer Steps Up For The Linux Kernel
This week was the dramatic decision by Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin to step down as upstream kernel maintainer for the Apple Silicon (ARM) code following friction with other kernel developers over Rust affairs within the kernel. He still intends to contribute code to Asahi Linux’s downstream kernel and Linus Torvalds has already merged the patch dropping him as an upstream maintainer. Now a new co-maintainer has volunteered to help oversee the Apple Silicon code for the mainline kernel.
Linus Torvalds Clearly Lays Out Linux Maintainer Roles – Or Not – Around Rust Code
The Linux kernel mailing list drama around the Rust programming language use within the kernel continues… Linus Torvalds has largely refrained from the ongoing LKML discussions around a Rust policy for the Linux kernel and in-fighting between kernel developers and maintainers with differing views over Rust. This evening though Linus Torvalds did decide to chime in on the conversation.
Linus Torvalds Would Reportedly Merge Rust Kernel Code Over Maintainer Objections
The drama surrounding Rust code within the Linux kernel continues… Christoph Hellwig is the maintainer of the DMA mapping helpers and several other areas of the kernel has been an outspoken critic of Rust code or secondary programming languages within the Linux kernel kernel. Hellwig has been critical of Rust code for the Linux kernel and its long-term maintainability. Today he’s out with another mailing list post where he notes that Linus Torvalds mentioned in private he would override maintainer vetoes on Rust code within the kernel.
Linux 6.13 Performance For 250Hz vs. 1000Hz Timer Frequency Comparison
Given the recent patch proposal to raise the Linux kernel’s default timer frequency from 250Hz to 1000Hz, I ran some fresh benchmarks looking at the 250Hz vs. 1000Hz comparison on some modern desktop hardware.
Python 3.14 Lands A New Interpreter With 3~30% Faster Python Code
Merged last week for Python 3.14 is a new tail-call intepreter that aims to offer significantly better performance with around 10% faster performance in PyPerformance or around a 40% speed-up in Python-heavy benchmarks. This tail-call interpeter can even outperform the current Python JIT compiler but for maximum performance benefits Python should be built with Profile Guided Optimizations (PGO).
Firefox ForkServer Getting Ready To Enhance Linux Browser Performance
Firefox has been shipping their nightly Linux builds the past three months with ForkServer enabled to improve the multi-process browser experience. The results are looking good and Firefox official releases for Linux should soon begin shipping with ForkServer too for this performance win.
KDE Plasma 6.3: “It’s Looking Pretty Good!”
KDE developer Nate Graham is out with his traditional weekly recap of all the interesting KDE Plasma changes for the past week. With less than two weeks until the Plasma 6.3 stable release, Nate Graham began his weekly update by remarking that the Plasma 6.3 desktop is “looking pretty good!”
Clang Thread Safety Checks Begin Uncovering Bugs In The Linux Kernel
Posted to the Linux kernel mailing list this week were two competing solutions for new LLVM Clang capability / thread safety analysis to the Linux kernel. Two developers had separately been working on implementations for the Linux kernel to Clang’s “-Wthread-safety” functionality. Ultimately the upstream kernel will likely settle upon the superior or unified solution while already making use of these new checks is uncovering Linux kernel bugs.
Linux Foundation Announces The SEAPATH 1.0 Hypervisor
The Linux Foundation by way of their LF Energy initiative announced today the release of SEAPATH 1.0, a security-hardened real-time hypervisor.
GTK’s X11 Backend Now Deprecated, Planned For Removal In GTK 5
GTK developers have been holding another hackfest this week for the annual FOSDEM developer conference happening this weekend in Brussels. GTK developers are working toward the GTK 4.18 stable release and continuing to think more about GTK 5.
GNOME 48 Lands HDR Support Bits At The Last Minute
On Saturday was the GNOME 48 feature freeze and landing during the final moments of this feature development period was new High Dynamic Range (HDR) code for Mutter and the toggling within the GNOME Control Center.
Systemd Adding The Ability to Boot Directly Into A Disk Image Downloaded Via HTTP
Systemd lead developer Lennart Poettering has been working on adding the ability to let systemd boot directly into a disk image downloaded via HTTP within the initial RAM disk (initrd) during the Linux boot process.
PipeWire Is Doing An Excellent Job Handling Audio/Video Streams On The Linux Desktop
Red Hat engineer and PipeWire lead developer Wim Taymans presented at FOSDEM 2025 last weekend around the state of the PipeWire project for this integral component to the modern Linux desktop.
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