Graphics: NVIDIA, Nouveau and Vulkan

• NVIDIA 418.49.04 Linux Driver Brings Host Query Reset & YCbCr Image Arrays

  NVIDIA has issued new Vulkan beta drivers leading up to the Game Developers Conference 2019 as well as this next week there being NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference (GTC) nearby in California. The only publicly mentioned changes to this weekend's NVIDIA 418.49.04 Linux driver update (and 419.62 on the Windows side) is support for the VK_EXT_host_query_reset and VK_EXT_ycbcr_image_arrays extensions.

• Nouveau NIR Support Lands In Mesa 19.1 Git

  It shouldn't come as any surprise, but landing today in Mesa 19.1 Git is the initial support for the Nouveau Gallium3D code to make use of the NIR intermediate representation as an alternative to Gallium's TGSI. The Nouveau NIR support is part of the lengthy effort by Red Hat developers on supporting this IR as part of their SPIR-V and compute upbringing. The NIR support is also a stepping stone towards a potential NVIDIA Vulkan driver in the future.

• Vulkan 1.1.104 Brings Native HDR, Exclusive Fullscreen Extensions

  With the annual Game Developers' Conference (GDC) kicking off tomorrow in San Francisco, Khronos' Vulkan working group today released Vulkan 1.1.104 that comes with several noteworthy extensions. Vulkan 1.1.104 is the big update for GDC 2019 rather than say Vulkan 1.2, but it's quite a nice update as part of the working group's weekly/bi-weekly release regiment. In particular, Vulkan 1.1.104 is exciting for an AMD native HDR extension and also a full-screen exclusive extension.

• Interested In FreeSync With The RADV Vulkan Driver? Testing Help Is Needed

  Since the long-awaited introduction of FreeSync support with the Linux 5.0 kernel, one of the missing elements has been this variable rate refresh support within the RADV Vulkan driver. When the FreeSync/VRR bits were merged into Linux 5.0, the RadeonSI Gallium3D support was quick to land for OpenGL games but RADV Vulkan support was not to be found. Of course, RADV is the unofficial Radeon open-source Vulkan driver not officially backed by AMD but is the more popular driver compared to their official AMDVLK driver or the official but closed driver in their Radeon Software PRO driver package (well, it's built from the same sources as AMDVLK but currently with their closed-source shader compiler rather than LLVM). So RADV support for FreeSync has been one of the features users have been quite curious about and eager to see.

New Screencasts: Xubuntu 18.04.2, Ubuntu MATE, and Rosa Fresh 11

• Taking Xubuntu 18.04.2 for a Spin

• Taking Another Look at Ubuntu MATE with 18.04.2 LTS

• Rosa Fresh 11 Run through

  In this video, we are looking at Rosa Fresh 11. Enjoy!

9 Admirable Graphical File Managers

Being able to navigate your local filesystem is an important function of personal computing. File managers have come a long way since early directory editors like DIRED. While they aren’t cutting-edge technology, they are essential software to manage any computer. File management consists of creating, opening, renaming, moving / copying, deleting and searching for files. But file managers also frequently offer other functionality. In the field of desktop environments, there are two desktops that dominate the open source landscape: KDE and GNOME. They are smart, stable, and generally stay out of the way. These use the widget toolkits Qt and GTK respectively. And there are many excellent Qt and GTK file managers available. We covered the finest in our Qt File Managers Roundup and GTK File Managers Roundup. But with Linux, you’re never short of alternatives. There are many graphical non-Qt and non-Gtk file managers available. This article examines 9 such file managers. The quality is remarkably good.

Slimbook & Kubuntu - Combat Report 6

Here we are gathered, for another episode of drama, thrill and technological escapades in the land of Tux. Starring one Slimbook Pro2 in the main role, with a trusty sidekick called Bionic Beaver of the Kubuntu clan. We've had quite a few episodes so far, and they tell a rather colorful story of progress, beauty and bugs. Over the past few months, I've detailed my usage of the laptop and its operating system in serious, real-life situations, with actual productivity needs and challenges. This isn't just a test, this is running the machine properly. Many things work well, but then, there are problems, too. Of course, you can read all about those in the previous articles, and again, for the sake of simplicity, I'm only going to link to only the last report here. If you're truly intrigued, I'm sure you can find your way around. [..]. I believe the Slimbook - with its Kubuntu brains - is slowly settling down. The one thing that is certain is that system updates bring in small tweaks and fixes all the time, and it's a shame that we can't have that from the very first minute. On the other hand, the system is stable, robust, and there are no regressions. I am quite pleased. But there are still many things that can improved. Small things. The nth-order fun that isn't immediate or obvious, and so people don't see it until they come across a non-trivial use case, and then things start falling apart. This is true for all operating system, it's only the matter of how much. Plasma has made great strides in becoming semi-pro, and I hope it will get better still. Onwards. Also: Krita Interview with Svetlana Rastegina