Slashdot Mirror
Kernel 2.6.31 To Speed Up Linux Desktop
Dan Jones writes "As the Linux community looks forward to another kernel release, the kernel hackers have been working on improving the memory management so that the X desktop responsiveness is doubled under high memory pressure. The result is an improved desktop experience. Benchmarks on memory-tight desktops show clock time and major faults reduced by 50 per cent, and pswpin numbers (memory reads from disk) are reduced to about one-third. Another improvement coming with 2.6.31 is kernel mode-setting support for ATI Radeon graphics cards, enabling faster user switching and a more seamless startup experience. Peripheral developments that will also improve the Linux desktop experience include support for the new USB 3.0 specification and a new Firewire stack. Even minor Linux releases have heaps of new features these days!"
From the kernelnewbies article:
With the HD5850 and HD5870 weeks away (don't buy a new card till they're out, you'll hate yourself!), this means you have to be three GENERATIONS behind the curve for this yet unreleased kernel feature to be of use.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
We won't: http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2008/7/15/2497614
[citations needed]
EXA is the backend acceleration we use right now in X. It works.
Full EXA is provided for radeon, nouveau, and intel, the Big Three. A lot of esoteric chips are supported too. They might not be super-fast, but they're still fast enough to do nearly anything. (Getting that vaunted 1m glyphs/sec is tough though.)
Flash is a piece of shit. I most certainly can and will blame Adobe for not putting more than one person on the Linux Flash team, and I can point to the incomplete, buggy, largely hacked-up Gnash as an example of a software rasterizer that moves much faster than Flash despite also being lame.
Don't even get me started on Flash Video.
~ C.