Items tagged with Linux
Unlike a true gaming "console" handheld such as the Nintendo Switch, Valve's Steam Deck is essentially a portable PC more akin to the Aya Neo or various GPD devices. This is great from a certain perspective; it means that when things go wrong, you can usually fix them. Unfortunately, it also means that it's a lot more...
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Have you been playing Elden Ring, lowly tarnished? If you've been playing it on the PC, you've probably noticed that it has a little bit of a stuttering problem. The severity varies drastically from system to system, and you can modulate it a bit with the fixes we posted on Friday, but it's pretty much present for...
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It seems that cybersecurity concerns are once again on the rise, as just this week, we reported on the surge in ransomware attacks. Now, researchers at Qualys have published a privilege escalation vulnerability within snap-confine, a software packaging, and deployment system for Linux Kernel-based operating systems...
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Windows 11 and Alder Lake are supposed to go pair well like cheese and wine or peanut butter and jelly. And they do, thanks to efforts by both Intel and Microsoft to ensure Alder Lake's hybrid architecture and Thread Director feature are fully utilized in the OS. But guess what? A recent update to the Linux kernel...
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Hetereogeneous computing is nothing new, of course, but typically it has been one type of CPU core and one type of GPU, along with media processing blocks and other small functional units -- at least on desktop and notebooks systems. Intel's Alder Lake CPUs are the first x86-64 processors to embrace a hybrid paradigm...
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Love it or hate it, Fortnite is still one of the most-played games on the internet. Like most living game titles that hang around a few years, it's expanded considerably beyond the bare-bones battle royale experience that catapulted the formerly co-op game into the limelight. The game is available on just about every...
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Mesh shaders are one of the more interesting recent developments in computer graphics technology, despite that many users are very likely not heard of them, or only heard the name. In essence, mesh shaders are a programmable shader type that allows a GPU to shift some of the workload from fixed-function hardware over...
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This is shaping up to be a potentially big year for gaming on Linux. The first shipments of Valve's Steam Deck handheld with Proton in tow will go out later this month, and then later this year Intel will debut its first Arc Alchemist graphics cards, which could land with polished Resizable BAR support on Linux. So...
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Even with malware attacks against Linux on the rise, a major security vulnerability has somehow been lurking in every Linux distribution for a dozen years. Just hours after the bug became public, a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit showed up in the wild. The problem lies within a system utility called Polkit, which...
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If you're not a Linux sysadmin, you might not be familiar with Control Web Panel, but if you are a Linux sysadmin, you almost certainly are at least aware of the app. Control Web Panel, or CWP, is a free Linux control panel for various web services. It used to be called CentOS Web Panel, but these days it's supported...
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Computer graphics in the modern age are already a delicate dance between CPU and GPU. Throw in the power management concerns that come from operating in a constrained environment, such as a laptop, and you add on a whole further level of complexity. Historically, we allowed each component in the system to manage its...
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Linux used to be considered fairly safe from malware. Few, if any, threat actors targeted the Unix-based operating system. That’s changing rapidly, though, as reports indicate malware for Linux increased by 35 percent in 2021, compared to the previous year.
Linux is commonly used for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. With more people adopting
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Linux fans rejoice! Pine64’s newest smartphone is officially available for pre-order. Here is everything you need to know to get your hands on the PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition.
PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition pre-orders opened up yesterday. Devices that are pre-ordered before January 18th will be shipped from...
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Ever since BIOS updates became possible, the process required rebooting the PC. Even when motherboard manufacturers moved completely to UEFI, this remained the case. Intel is now changing that, thanks to a new part of the ACPI specification called Platform Firmware Runtime Update and Telemetry (PFRUT). This allows for...
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A solid move for folks who just want to play some PC games in this GPU-starved market hellscape has been to pick up a CPU with a fast integrated GPU. Sure, integrated graphics aren't going to blow anyone's socks off, but game performance can be eminently playable with the right settings. In a laptop, you have your...
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If you're a long-time Mac or Linux user, you've almost certainly benefited from the work of CodeWeavers even if you've never heard of them. Founded in 1996, the company has been working for a long time now on making Windows applications run on first Linux, then Mac, and most recently, ChromeOS. CodeWeavers is the...
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When was the last time you tried using Linux as a desktop OS? Sure, some high-profile YouTubers have been having a lot of trouble recently, but they're trying to make a point out of love. For enthusiasts, the transition from Windows is surprisingly smooth these days, and on the vast majority of consumer PC hardware...
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Experimenting with SiFive's HiFive Unmatched RISC-V development board over the last few weeks has felt a bit like stepping back in time. The experience left me feeling a bit nostalgic. Picture this. It's 1997. I'm a high school sophomore. I head over to my friend's house after class because a long-awaited CD with something called "Slackware...
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Did you know you can play PC games on Linux? And not just games with Linux-native versions, either. Sure, Wine's been around for nearly three decades, but it's Valve's Proton that has been making the most significant progress lately. By combining DXVK, the aforementioned Wine, and a bundle of its own code, Proton lets...
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Accurate timers are critical to the function of the low-level parts of the underlying code that drives the user-facing software we actually use in our daily lives. Fortunately, x86-64 PCs include numerous timers. Actually selecting which of those timers to use in a given scenario, however, can be a headache due to...
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By all accounts—even our own—the Apple M1 SoC powering the company's newest machines is a beast, but it comes with a drawback in that you can only run MacOS on it. A lot of folks love MacOS for various reasons, to be sure. It's also undeniable that the proprietary OS limits your access to the majority of desktop and...
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A recent Linux patch from AMD hints that the company might be gearing up to refresh its second generation Radeon DNA (RDNA 2) graphics card lineup, similar to how NVIDIA has a history of adding "Ti" and "Super" variants of its GPU product lines. Nothing is official at the moment, but if a refresh does occur, would...
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