Long ago, here on the blog I shared with readers about a custom Linux kernel for the Fedora Linux distribution, ClearKernel.
This Linux kernel is a modification made by an Intel development group, in order to offer users of this distribution who have Intel hardware better Linux performance on their computers.
Clear Kernel is the work of a Fedora developer for porting this Kernel to the distribution in order to obtain all its benefits and in addition to having better support and performance within Fedora.
About Clear Linux
Intel is building a Linux operating system distribution for various cloud use cases.
The goal Clear Linux operating system is to show the best of Intel architecture technology, from low-level kernel functions to more complex use cases spanning the entire set of operating systems.
In recent years, Intel's Open Source Technology Center has been working on its Clear Linux distribution to provide the best Linux support for Intel hardware in cloud-based deployments.
While Clear Linux focuses on workstation / server performance, its developers are working to provide support for Steam.
As Phoronix discovered, Intel developer Arjan van de Ven has tweeted an image showing Steam running on Clear Linux:
ClearLinux already comes with the latest Mesa stack, which includes Vulkan drivers. Recently, it also added a game pack.
How to Live Aligned with this Linux distribution is tuned for performance on Intel hardware, it will be interesting to test games on Clear Linux in the future.
The Clear Linux distribution managed to implement support for KDE Plasma Desktop, making the environment a good choice for GNOME Shell.
Intel's Clear Linux Open Source Center Tecnology distribution It started with Xfce as its only desktop option, and then added and moved to the GNOME Shell and the standard desktop.
Clear Linux succeeded in implementing KDE Plasma support
At that time, while GNOME Shell is still the standard desktop option for this distribution Linux rolling-release, KDE components started to appear.
Over the weekend, the KDE Plasma desktop finally became functional on Clear Linux.
It also has the new desktop-kde-apps and desktop-kde-libs packages, although they are included as part of the desktop-kde package.
So far Clear Linux is packing into the distribution in KDE Plasma 5.13.4 and KDE Frameworks 5.49.0 versions which are last stable components with Clear are generally very good at always following new software packages.
Now, the desktop-kde package is working and the session can be activated through the GDM login manager.
According to the Phoronix site, the experience is fairly stable and there is no clear marking on the KDE desktop at the moment, but all the main features seem to be working.
There are a reasonable number of core KDE applications included, but obviously it doesn't include everything under the K * umbrella (like the KScreenshot).
There is a login option for KDE Plasma in Wayland, but it doesn't seem to work properly, only in X.Org based session.
They are still in the process of adding more KDE applications to their packages.
However, for the moment, Clear Linux only offers accelerated graphics, and the open source Radeon or NVIDIA drivers do not work. As a result, Clear Linux can become a good contender for playing Steam OpenGL / Vulkan games that don't include high-end graphics.
In the near future, I hope Clear Linux will ship with dedicated graphics support as well and will become a gaming Linux distro in the true sense.
Very interesting! We will have to keep track…
In the Phoronix Clear comparisons it does nothing but make a fool of all rival distros. The question here is to know why, and what the other distros can do to catch up and thus start a healthy (hopefully) competitiveness that makes Linux faster, more stable and more secure. After all we are talking about a GNU / Linux distribution, that is, everything is known about it, its code is there for everyone to see, you just have to look at what configurations it uses, what versions of packages, libraries, etc, and compilation options, and then Arch, Debian, Suse, etc, use the same, or better, parameters. This is not a mysterious thing as it would be in Windows, where no one can see how they have done it.
Anyway, I hope that the other distros get the hang of it and this breath of fresh air that is Clear linux serves to motivate them to improve them.
Greetings.