Category Archives: Linux

Snadragon X Elite Laptop Performance On Linux Ends 2025 Disappointing

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As part of my various end-of-year benchmarking comparison articles for looking at the performance evolution of Linux is a fresh look at the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop experience when using Ubuntu 25.10 with the latest X1E Concept packages, which includes taking the X1 Elite optimized kernel to the latest Linux 6.18 stable series. Unfortunately, there are significant performance regressions observed compared to a few months ago that just make AMD Ryzen AI and Intel Core Ultra laptops a better choice for Linux laptop users.

A partial ruling in the Vizio GPL suit

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The judge in the Vizio GPL-compliance lawsuit has ruled, in a
summary judgment, that the GNU General Public License, version 2,
does not require the provision of signing keys needed to install modified
software on a device.

Read as a whole, the Agreements require Vizio to make the source
code available in such a manner that the source code can be readily
obtained and modified by Plaintiff or other third parties. While
source code is defined to include “the scripts used to control
compilation and installation,” this does not mean that Vizio must
allow users to reinstall the software, modified or otherwise, back
onto its smart TVs in a manner that preserves all features of the
original program and/or ensures the smart TVs continue to function
properly. Rather, in the context of the Agreements, the disputed
language means that Vizio must provide the source code in a manner
that allows the source code to be obtained and revised by Plaintiff
or others for use in other applications.

As the Software Freedom Conservancy, the plaintiff in the case, has pointed
out, the judge has ruled against a claim that was never actually made.

SFC has never held the position, nor do we today hold the position,
that any version of the GPL (even including GPLv3!) require “that
the device continues to function properly” after a user installs
their modified version of the copyleft components.

Linus Torvalds, meanwhile, has posted his own take
on the ruling that has, as one might imagine, sparked an extended
discussion as well.

Final Benchmarks Of AMDVLK vs. RADV AMD Radeon Vulkan Drivers

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One of the pleasant surprises this year was AMD ending the AMDVLK driver development with AMD dropping their proprietary OpenGL and Vulkan driver components on Linux at long last for their Radeon Software for Linux packages. This was arguably long overdue with enthusiasts and Linux gamers long preferring the RadeonSI+RADV Mesa drivers and those drivers even doing very well in recent years for workstation graphics workloads. One of the areas where AMDVLK formerly delivered better performance than RADV was with Vulkan ray-tracing. But RADV ray-tracing improved a lot in 2025 as shown in recent benchmarks. So for this Christmas 2025 benchmarking is a final look at how RADV is going up against the now-defunct AMDVLK driver.

Ruby 4.0 released

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Once again there is a brand-new release under the tree from the
Ruby programming-language project: Ruby 4.0
has been released with many new features and improvements. Notable
changes include the experimental Ruby Box
feature for in-process isolation of classes and modules, a new
just-in-time compiler called ZJIT, and improvements to Ruby’s
parallel-execution mechanism (Ractor). There are a number of language
changes as well. See the documentation
for Ruby 4.0 for more.

The Death Of Clear Linux, Other Intel Linux Engineering Setbacks In 2025

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When it came to the most viewed AMD Linux/open-source news of 2025 there were a lot of accomplishments for the company this year both on the CPU and graphics side of the house and from consumer to server hardware. Today is a look back at the most popular Intel open-source/Linux news of the year, which unfortunately, their layoffs and other cuts to their software engineering were attracting a lot of interest…