Search Results For: Linux.aspx
Valve's been working hard to pad up its game collection for Linux on Steam, last week having released betas for Portal (not 2... yet) and Left 4 Dead 2. When those were ushered out, the first thing I thought of was, "Where on earth are the Half-Life 2 titles?" I sure didn't need to wait long for the answer to that one, as the company...
Read more...
Following what Linus Torvalds called a "very quiet" week, the Finnish American open-source software guru officially released the Linux 3.9 kernel. The latest kernel had been in development for 10 weeks and includes a device mapper target that allows a user to configure a solid state drive (SSD) as a cache for hard disk drives (HDDs) to increase...
Read more...
It wasn't all that long ago that mainstream gaming on Linux was virtually unheard of. Sure, solutions like WINE have been around for awhile now, but it's only recently that developers and gamers alike have truly started to embrace Linux as a viable platform. Even Dell is getting in on the action by announcing a lower priced version of its...
Read more...
It might not come as much of a surprise, but according to a recent survey conducted by EE Times, Linux continues to tear up the charts in the embedded market (embedded refers to special-purpose PCs found in things like TVs, media players, cars, machinery and so forth). Between 2012 and 2013, companies began to shift...
Read more...
A lot of things happen at the start of each month, and one of those that I look most forward to is being able to check out the updated hardware survey at Steam. It's especially interesting right now, because Windows 8 is only four months old, and the platform became official for Linux only a couple of weeks ago. Given it happened so recently,...
Read more...
One of the coolest aspects of Linux is its ability to support hardware long before other OSes - and even well before consumers can even get their hands on the hardware. Take USB 3.0, for example, which hit the kernel months before the first products hit the market, in September of 2009. And then there's the SSD command TRIM, which was first...
Read more...
After getting delayed a couple of days, the Linux 3.8 kernel is all polished and ready to go, Linus Torvalds announced. The big new feature in the 3.8 kernel is F2FS (Flash-Friendly File system), a new file system designed specifically to take advantage of NAND flash memory-based storage devices, such as solid state...
Read more...
It’s only been a matter of weeks since Valve announced that Steam for Linux was in beta, but it’s apparently all polished up and ready for action. You can now grab the Steam for Linux client, which is compatible with Ubuntu versions 10.04-12.10, for free from the Ubuntu Software Center. This is a huge deal for folks who love...
Read more...
Unigine announced a new GPU benchmark known as Valley Benchmark. From the same developers who created Heaven Benchmark, the Valley Benchmark is a non-synthetic benchmark that is powered by the Unigine Engine, a real-time 3D engine that supports the latest rendering features. This benchmark features a number of...
Read more...
We posted last week about a severe bug plaguing select Samsung notebooks where simply installing Linux could result in a non-functional machine, and since then, kernel developers rolled-out an update that helped side-step the issue. While things seemed fine and good since then, it turns out that the situation is even worse than originally...
Read more...
Can something that's just taken a couple of months to arrive still be considered "long-awaited"? If so, the official Linux UEFI pre-bootloader fits the bill, as it's something that's been needed ever since the introduction of the Microsoft-pushed Secure Boot mechanism on UEFI-equipped PCs. We've talked about this pre-bootloader a couple of...
Read more...
It's a tossup between Linux and Mac as to which is the red-headed stepchild of computer gaming, though things are improving on both platforms. As it pertains to the latter, Electronic Arts announced the official launch of its Origin game distribution service to Mac, giving Apple users access to many of the same features found on Origin for...
Read more...
AMD isn't yet ready to welcome its upcoming Radeon HD 8000 Series graphics cards to the world, but the company is preparing for the impending launch, in part by publishing initial open source Linux drivers. Found in the Mesa graphics library, the open source drivers pertain to the Radeon HD 8870 and 8850 graphics cards. Barring any delays...
Read more...
When the Linux Foundation announced that it was creating its own UEFI boot solution, it seemed that our woes about not being able to install Linux on Secure Boot systems would soon be coming to an end. While the "pre-bootloader" is still not production-ready, it's been readily worked on, and recently experienced some...
Read more...
Linux users have long had the right to be concerned about UEFI's "SecureBoot" feature, and this is a perfect justification for it. It seems that on select Samsung notebook models, merely booting into Linux via UEFI can brick it. We're not just talking about something that an OS re-install could fix, either - it...
Read more...
We reported on Valve's roll-out of the original Half-Life for Linux and Mac yesterday, but it doesn't look like the fun was meant to stop there. Today, Valve followed-up with a release of the original Counter-Strike, or "1.6" as it's commonly known. That puts the total number of games based on the GoldSrc...
Read more...
After several setbacks and delays, the folks at Fedora have just released their newest Linux distro, Fedora 18, otherwise known by its code-name "Spherical Cow." One of the big new features in Fedora 18 is that it now supports UEFI Secure Boot by using bootloaders that have been signed with Microsoft certificates. In short, you should have...
Read more...
If you follow the Linux scene, you might recall that FreeBSD 9.1 was originally supposed to be released around the middle of September. That plan got scrapped when the first Release Candidate (RC) arrived a month late, which also pushed back the RC2 and RC3 releases. There was then talk of a late October release, then mid-November, both of...
Read more...
With Valve soon to launch its Steam client for Linux, the OS has its first real boon where gaming's concerned. Sure, there have always been games available for Linux if you've known where to look, and likewise, the Humble Bundle has been a definite help as well. But with Valve backing the OS for gaming, the future is very bright, and it may...
Read more...
Own a Nexus 7 tablet and are left bored with the default Android OS? Want to wipe it clean and install Linux? If so, you're in luck, as a couple of developers behind the KDE-derived Plasma Active project have just issued the first release of their distro specifically designed for the tablet. "Wipe it clean" is...
Read more...
Valve has some great news for the open source gaming crowd. The Steam for Linux beta program is now open to the public, meaning anyone and everyone can join. All that's required is that you download the latest Steam Linux client (or upgrade your current Steam for Linux client to the latest release) and you're good to go. The new client introduces...
Read more...
What do you do when the world jumps into its hand basket? You build a fort and survive, of course. And while you’re waiting for the apocalypse, a good way to practice might be Forsaken Fortress, should it come to pass. Think of a post-apocalyptic version of The Sims and you’re in the right neighborhood. If...
Read more...
