Tumbleweed Gamers Get Updates of Mesa, Pentobi
Gamers using openSUSE Tumbleweed have at least two package updates in the rolling release that enhanced performance on their system and offer new features.
Both the 3D Graphics Library Mesa and computer opponent package Pentobi each landed in a separate snapshot. There have been four Tumbleweed snapshots released so far this week.
Snapshot 20210420 brought in nearly a dozen package updates, which included an update of GNU Compiler Collection 10.3.0. The updated GCC disabled the Parallel Thread Execution, nvptx, offloading for AArch64 and ffmpeg-4 4.4 improved AV1 support and it monochrome encoding. A couple YaST packages were updated. More specifically, the update of yast2-installation to 4.4.4 removed some system directory conflicts and made some changes to the spec-cleaner. Other packages to update in the snapshot were CPU balancer irqbalance 1.8.0, kdenetwork-filesharing 20.12.3 and rpm 4.16.1.3.
The 21.0.2 version of Mesa and Mesa-drivers arrived in snapshot 20210418. There were several optimizations and additions on the Radeon Vulkan (RADV) driver front where sparse memory support is in place. The update also moved osmesa build to Mesa-drivers since swrast driver has been removed from Mesa. Fast streaming XML parser expat 2.3.0 had a bug fix that no longer triggers an undefined behavior. The 1.10.6 graphene package, which is a thin layer of graphic data types enabled Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 on x86_64. Serval translations were made with the update of iso-codes 4.6.0. Google’s regular expression library re2 had two months worth of updates and one of those makes it easier to swap in a scalable reader-writer lock. The Linux Kernel updated from 5.11.12 to 5.11.15 and there were several KVM for x86_64. Other packages to update in the snapshot were libxcrypt 4.4.19, librsvg 2.50.4 and pipewire 0.3.25.
Board game players received a major version update of Pentobi in snapshot 20210417. The new pentobi 19.0 version displays the manual with an external browser, which removes the dependency on the Qt WebView library. The Qt SVG library is no longer needed and loading game files in encodings other than UTF-8 is no longer supported. The only other package in the snapshot was rubygem-tmuxinator 2.0.3, which had a minor update to add support for terminal multiplexer tmux 3.2.
The snapshot starting off the week, 20210415, updated Mozilla Thunderbird 78.9.1, which addressed a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures that created an inability to send encrypted OpenPGP emails after importing a crafted OpenPGP key. PDF renderer poppler 21.04.0 fixed word ordering and a crash in files with malformed signatures. Web development package perl-Mojolicious 9.17 deprecated some format parameters and mail server package postfix 3.5.10 made a security fix that was introduced in a previous version, which had some internal Input and Output errors during the smtp(8) to tlsproxy(8) handshake.
Measuring web traffic with Matomo
Matomo is an open source PHP/MySQL based web analytics application to track online visits to websites and displays reports on these visits. It does what Google Analytics does, but it is open source. Matomo has commercial cloud based offering for those who do not want to host their own instance but the code is there on GitHub (https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo) for anyone who is interested.
I decided to first test drive the cloud based solution and then install my own instance.
MemberAdd a network printer through Yast under openSUSE
Digest of YaST Development Sprints 119, 120 & 121
YaST development never stops. But we have to admit we have not kept our readers as informed as usual about the activities of the YaST team, other than our blog post about Hack Week. We had to adapt the length and focus of some sprints before and after Hack Week. That, together with Easter season in Europe and some extra vacations, affected our good publishing habits. On the bright side, we have tons of topics for you, let’s do a quick recap.
- Reduction of the memory consumption during installation.
- New option to enable installation in systems with small RAM.
- Improvements in the NetworkManager support.
- Polishing of the upcoming releases, especially AutoYaST and hardware enablement.
- A new
extendparameter inlinuxrcto help openQA. - More consistent and polished LibYUI development.
- Research and open discussion about the current state and future of:
- YaST Firstboot,
- YaST Users,
- the installation workflow.
So let’s go by parts. As you may know, libzypp was recently updated in all SLE and openSUSE
distributions to bring some cool new features. Unfortunately that came with a small increase in
memory consumption. That was enough to exceed the current installation requirements, so we had to
find some way to save memory in the installer. We adjusted several things, especially the installer
self-update mechanism. See this pull request
to know how we managed to fit again into the requirements. As a nice side effect, we improved the
handling of the memsample script we use to track memory usage during installation.
Talking about the memory consumption of the installation process, we also added a cool feature to
linuxrc and YaST that makes possible to install (open)SUSE in systems with an small amount of
memory. Check the new zram parameters in the linuxrc
documentation and see the description of this pull
request if you are interested in the details.
Another area that received quite some love is the support for configuring NetworkManager during the installation process. For SLE-15-SP3 and Leap 15.3 that includes better DNS settings, support for bridge and bonding configuration and improved AutoYaST integration. For Tumbleweed it also includes displaying the corresponding details in the installer’s summary screen.
We also invested quite some time polishing the upcoming releases of openSUSE Leap 15.3 and SLES-15-SP3. Especially improving the handling of AutoYaST profiles, extending the support for some storage technologies like NVMe and adjusting the boot loader configuration for a wide range of hardware.
On the more technical side of things, we also added a new extend
parameter to linuxrc (which now allows a smooth
integration of the libyui-rest-api plugin in openQA) and we unified the repositories of LibYUI (which simplifies maintenance and future contributions).
While doing all that, we also found time to think about the future of YaST. We did some extensive research on the current state of three areas we would like to improve in the mid term:
-
YaST Firstboot. Check this Github issue (and all the related issues linked from it) describing several aspects of the current state and also ideas about improving its look&feel and making it a more useful tool.
-
The current installation process. Again, we are using Github issues to discuss how to make it shorter and more understandable. As a starting point, check this issue that contains an interesting conversation and also links to several other related issues.
-
YaST Users. We are considering to refactor this module to improve the management of local users and to reduce the risk introduced by its current complexity. As a first step, we created a new repository that, so far, contains several documents describing the status quo.
As you can see, we may have been a bit absent but definitely we have not been idle. And the best news is that we are back to our usual biweely schedule, so we will have more to share soon. Meanwhile stay safe and fun!
llunakThe effect of CPU, link-time (LTO) and profile-guided (PGO) optimizations on the compiler itself
In other words, how much faster will a compiler be after it's been built with various optimizations?
Given the recent Clang12 release, I've decided to update my local build of Clang11 that I've been using for building LibreOffice. I switched to using my own Clang build instead of openSUSE packages somewhen in the past because it was faster. I've meanwhile forgot how much faster :), and openSUSE packages now build with LTO, so I've built Clang12 in several different ways to test the effect and this is it:
The file compiled is LO Calc's document.cxx, a fairly large source file, in a debug LO build. The compilation of the file is always the same, the only thing that differs is the compiler used and whether LO's PCH support is enabled. And the items are:
- Base - A release build of Clang12, with (more or less) the default options.
- CPU - As above, with -march=native -mtune=native added.
- LTO - As above, with link-time optimization used. Building Clang this way takes longer.
- LTO+PGO - As above, also with profile-guided optimization used. Building Clang this way takes even longer, as it needs two extra Clang builds to collect the PGO data.
- Base PCH - As Base, and the file is built with PCH used.
- LTO+PGO PCH - As LTO+PGO, again with PCH used.
Or, if you want this as numbers, then with Base being 100%, CPU is 85%, LTO is 78%, LTO+PGO is 59%, Base PCH is 37% and LTO+PGO PCH is 25%. Not bad.
Mind you, this is just for one randomly selected file. YMMV. For the build from the video from the last time, the original time of 4m39s with Clang11 LTO PCH goes down to 3m31s for Clang12 LTO+PGO PCH, which is 76%, which is consistent with the LTO->LTO+PGO change above.
openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2021/15
Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,
After I left you and Tumbleweed in the capable hands of Richard for two weeks, it is good to be back. The week has seen a slightly lower count of published snapshots, but only because openQA was nice enough to find bugs that we did not you having to fight with. So, we only released two snapshots (0408 and 0414). As usual, the large gap means a few snapshots were tested in between, and things accumulated.
As a result, we managed to deliver these updates to the users:
- openSSL 1.1.1k
- systemd 246.13
- libvirt 7.2.0
- KDE frameworks 5.81.0
- KDE Plasma 5.21.4
- GNOME 40.0
- GStreamer 1.18.4
- Linux kernel 5.11.12
- Ruby 2.7.3 and Ruby 3.0.1
Staging projects are busy, but luckily with a bit of space to actually stage new requests. The main changes currently being tested and coming to you in the future are:
- LXQt 0.17.0
- Python 3.9 modules: besides python36-FOO and python38-FOO, we are testing to also shop python39-FOO modules; we already have the interpreter after all. Python 3.8 will remain the default for now. Building in snapshot 0415
- Linux kernel 5.11.14+
- LibreOffice 7.1.2.2
- UsrMerge is progressing well, thanks to Ludwig for his continued work here
- GCC 10.3.0
- GCC 11 as the default compiler
Jammin' on Elektron
While I have a planned post about the Polyend Tracker, a marvelous music tracker in a box from Poland, I'm posting this short one about my newly found love of performing electronic music "live".
Obviously I have to preface this by saying that I am absoutely aware just how terrible I am. At the same time, there are very few things I do terribly, that bring me so much joy not only while I do them, but even when I get to listen to them back afterwards. I know I'm off here, I know I miss a quiet part after the energy rise there. And yet it feels like magic that I've created that.
I always enjoy processes where I only give a hint of direction and just enjoy the ride while the result builds itself. Trackers felt great because they allow you to consistently adjust and build upon some foundations. The idea that I have to have a plan in my head and have to move fast enough not to screw up sounded terrible when I started. Even without involving other people, it felt stressful. But I stuck with it and now I actually enjoy the process. Yes, I do have to take multiple takes and have to fight my urge to do a 100% clean run, but learning to publish something is something that also doesn't come naturally.
Don't expect Tinlicker or Jon Hokins yet, but I'm hopeful that this time next year I will still be posting about my music.
GNOME 40, KDE Frameworks, Plasma Update in Tumbleweed
Two openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots were released since last week’s blog.
The snapshots brought the much anticipated GNOME 40 as well as an update of KDE Frameworks 5.81.0, Plasma 5.21.4 and several other packages.
The 20210414 snapshots was a monster; the amount of packages updated in the snapshot was ginormous. The update to GNOME 40 brought some significant changes to the desktop environment. New visual changes with rounded corners, and gestures like a three-finger swipe to move between workspaces were among the improvements in the release. The app launcher is more customizable and more intuitive to navigate with a mouse. Another desktop environment that was updated in the snapshot was Plasma 5.21.4, which had color scheme fixes and a fix for a broken keyboard configurations with single layout on Wayland. The release also set the preferred aspect ratio to “21:9” over “64:27” with KScreen. KDE Frameworks 5.81.0 added high-brightness and low-brightness Breeze Icons and the user interface builder Kirigami fixed a potential crash in the SizeGroup. Even Xfce had in update in the snapshot; this update in the xfce4-settings 4.16.1 package fixed scaling and updated translations. Dependencies were update in the upgrade to nodejs15 15.14. There was a minor fix for the cups printing package and xterm 367 updated some patches and improved responsiveness of the terminal. Linux Kernel 5.11.12 arrived in the snapshot and had several Advanced Linux Sound Architecture fixes and a commit for a nosy driver with Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)2021-3483. Both ruby2.7 and ruby3.0 received minor updates to fix an XML vulnerability and GStreamer 1.18.4 fixed mpeg-2 video handling and a memory leak. Several YaST packages also had updates.
A major version update of audacity 3.0.0 arrived in snapshot 20210408. The format to save Audacity projects was changed and a new analyzer called Label Sounds can label sounds and silences for more effective use of the application. Less than a handful of CVEs were updated in curl 7.76.0; the command line tool strips credentials from the auto-referer header field and adds support to read and store the referrer header. An update of systemd 246.13 had some changes to handle large packets more gracefully and rubygem-rubocop 1.12.1 had an enormous amount of fixes jumping from version 1.8.1. Another package that received a large amount of updates was vim 8.2.2725; there were fixes for a memory leak when compiling and a fix for hangs with the terminal when resized. The xf86-input-libinput package moved from version 0.30.0 to 1.0.0 and its biggest change was the change to an MIT Licence. Other packages updated in the snapshot were bind 9.16.12, fwupd 1.5.8 and openssl 1.1.1k, which fixed CVE-2021-3450 that had a problem with verifying a certificate chain when using a certain flag.
A Message from the openSUSE Board
(This message was originally published on the mailing list on April 2, 2021)
We, the members of the openSUSE Board, strongly value the openSUSE Code of Conduct and Guiding Principles:
Inclusion is a fundamental pillar of our community and the broader free software and open source communities that we are part of, are connected with, and value.
We firmly stand against sexism, racism,… and strive to keep our communities open, welcoming, and safe for everyone to join.
As a board, we also believe that these principles that apply to our openSUSE communities shall also apply to the events and groups that we partner with and sponsor.
We are reassessing our sponsorships in that light.
In accordance with this statement, we are discontinuing sponsorship of all events and organizations affiliated with the Free Software Foundation until further notice.
Axel, Gerald, Gertjan, Neal, Simon, Syds, Vinz