Servo 0.4 Browser Engine Gets More Websites Rendering Correctly
Servo 0.4 was just released for closing out the month of July. This month the Servo browser engine with its servoshell demo browser began rendering more real-world websites correctly… ⌘ Read more

Nouveau Patch For Linux 7.3 Opens The Door For NVK Vulkan Video Atop NVIDIA NVDEC
This week’s round of drm-misc-next patches for staging ahead of the Linux 7.3 kernel merge window bring an exciting change for the open-source NVIDIA “Nouveau” driver… ⌘ Read more

x86_64 Shadow Stack By Default Retargeted For Fedora 46
In recent weeks there was a proposal to enable x86_64 Shadow Stack support by default with the upcoming Fedora Linux 45 release. That change has been approved now by the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) but with the feature being punted off to Fedora 46 next year… ⌘ Read more

Vulkan 1.4.358 Released With New Image Tiling Control Extension
After two weeks without any Vulkan spec update, Vulkan 1.4.358 was released overnight. Besides the usual assortment of minor clarifications/fixes, Vulkan 1.4.358 introduces one new extension: VK_EXT_image_tiling_control… ⌘ Read more

Sound Fixes For Linux 7.2-rc6: “Far Larger Than Wished”
Linux sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai of SUSE previously warned of many sound driver fixes due to AI/LLMs and a “new normal” of patch activity as a result. While we are approaching the end of the Linux 7.2 merge window with the stable release coming up in August, the sound patches continue trending higher and this week were “far larger than wished” ahead of Linux 7.2-rc6 due out on Sunday… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.3 Will Treat Intel Nova Lake S Graphics As Stable
Ahead of the next-generation Intel Nova Lake processors expected to begin rolling out around the start of 2027, the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel cycle is going to begin treating Nova Lake S processors with their integrated graphics as stable… ⌘ Read more

AMD Posts Linux Patches For HDMI 2.1 Auto Low-Latency Mode “ALLM” & VRR
Following AMD posting AMDGPU patches for HDMI 2.1 FRL support after the HDMI 2.1 open-source support was long blocked by the HDMI Forum, as part of working toward a complete HDMI 2.1 implementation in this AMD Linux driver it was followed by HDMI 2.1 Display Stream Compression (DSC) support. Now the latest on the AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 enabling path is enabling Auto Low-Latency Mode (ALLM) as well as HDMI Variable Rate Refresh!.. ⌘ Read more

There’s Finally A New Game Powered By The Unigine 2 Engine
It’s been about a decade since seeing any new games released on the visually-impressive, Linux-friendly Unigine Engine. Unigine Corp has mostly been focusing on Unigine Engine usage for simulations and other professional applications, but coming as a surprise today is a new game being developed on their latest Unigine 2 engine technology… ⌘ Read more

OPI Abstraction v0.1 Published With Aiming To Standardize DPU/IPU Ecosystems
The Linux Foundation hosted Open Programmable Infrastructure “OPI” announced its first coordinated release with OPI Abstraction v0.1. The work of the Open Programmable Infrastructure is hoping to standardize the data processing unit (DPU) and infrastructure processing unit (IPU) ecosystems… ⌘ Read more

Nouveau vs. NVIDIA R610 On CachyOS With The GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU
With the Razer Blade 18 as the first laptop Razer’s certifying for (Ubuntu) Linux use while testing it out I was predominantly using the NVIDIA R610 official driver stack. Some users were interested though in how well this laptop is working with the open-source, upstream Nouveau+NVK driver stack given Razer is marketing this high-end laptop for Linux use too. Before sending the review unit back I had run some graphics benchmarks to see … ⌘ Read more

AMD Zen 6 Client HSMP Patches Points To “Ryzen Master” Functionality On Linux
In an interesting twist, patches this week posted to the Linux kernel mailing list are enabling AMD Zen 6 client desktop and laptop SoCs for the HSMP driver. Up to now the AMD HSMP Linux driver was just used for modern EPYC server processors while now we are seeing this HSMP driver supporting the upcoming Medusa and Olympic Ridge client platforms… Including mentions of overclocking and even noting “Ryzen Master” as the Windows-only … ⌘ Read more

Xen 4.22 Released With AMD Zen 5 BLT Support, Improved RISC-V Virtualization
The Xen Project today released Xen 4.22 as the newest feature release of this open-source hypervisor popular for open-source virtualization in automotive systems and other embedded use-cases as well as the cloud… ⌘ Read more

Huawei Considers Open-Sourcing A Half-Hearted Mesa Vulkan Driver
A Huawei engineer posted to the Mesa mailing list today over potentially upstreaming a Vulkan driver they have developed for an in-house GPU. However, at least in current form, this new in-house GPU Vulkan driver is likely dead in the water from being upstreamed into Mesa… ⌘ Read more

Patches Posted To Improve Linux Media Acceleration On Intel Alchemist GPUs
The Intel Arc A-Series graphics (DG2) remains in a bit of an awkward state on Linux due to the transition period moving from the i915 kernel driver to more modern and feature capable Xe kernel driver. It’s only post-Alchemist where the Intel Xe driver is officially supported and used by default while those opting for the Xe driver with the A-Series can often enjoy better performance and functionality. Except one of the caveats in using t … ⌘ Read more

Intel Media Driver & VPL GPU Runtime 2026Q2 Updates Continue Prepping For Nova Lake
Over the past few Intel VA-API Media Driver releases we have seen preparations made for Nova Lake video acceleration. That has continued today with the Intel Media Driver and Intel oneVPL GPU Runtime releases today with their new quarterly feature releases… ⌘ Read more

COSMIC Epoch 1.5 Brings More Fixes & Improvements To System76’s Desktop
The System76 and Pop!_OS developers continue quickly iterating on their Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment… ⌘ Read more

DRM Format Modifiers For Old AMD GPUs Coming With Linux 7.3: Thanks Valve
Sent out today was another week’s worth of features and other code changes to the AMDGPU kernel graphics driver and AMDKFD kernel compute driver. We are nearing the cut-off of new feature material for next month’s Linux 7.3 kernel but there is some nice feature work in store for this week… ⌘ Read more

Steam Client Adds HDR Streaming On Steam Deck OLED, AV1 Video Streaming
Today’s Steam client beta update brings some new game streaming enhancements for Linux gamers… ⌘ Read more

Intel Graphics Driver Support For Xe3 “Peak Bandwidth Threshold” Feature In Linux 7.3
Intel today sent out their latest batch of kernel graphics driver updates that are ready for staging ahead of next month’s Linux 7.3 merge window… ⌘ Read more

Valve Sponsors Work Bringing Open-Source RADV Driver To Windows
Valve has been sponsoring Collabora engineers with early phase, exploratory work for trying to bring the open-source Radeon Vulkan “RADV” driver to Microsoft Windows… ⌘ Read more

Vibe Coded X11 YSERVER Gets Steam Working, Full-Screen Games With Cinnamon
A new software creation that debuted this summer was YSERVER as a modern X11 server written in Rust largely by AI via Claude Code. This YSERVER implementation has continued implementing more X11 protocol and other functionality to get more desktop environments and apps working surprisingly okay on this vibe coded X11 server. YSERVER 1.4 is now available as the latest in this quest… ⌘ Read more

GCC To Decline Any Significant Contributions Made Via AI/LLMs - Except For Test Cases
The GCC Steering Committee announced today that they have accepted the recommended policy of the GCC AI Policy Working Group, which means no “legally significant” code contributions made via AI/LLM agents will be accepted into this open-source compiler… ⌘ Read more

ARCTIC Launches Its New Fan Controller That Already Has Mainline Linux Support
In over 22 years of Linux hardware reviews and testing at Phoronix, I have never been more excited for a fan controller… ARCTIC today launched their new Fan Controller and in making the product very unique for Linux users, it already has mainline Linux kernel support via a open-source driver contributed directly by ARCTIC… ⌘ Read more

Starling: A New Linux Desktop Written In Swift, Own Wayland Compositor & Written With AI
There’s yet another new open-source desktop option for Linux users in the era of new open-source projects largely written via AI/LLMs. Starling is this new project largely written via Claude and using the Swift programming language for the desktop while having its own Wayland compositor implemented in C. It also includes a built-in X11 server for handling X11 clients… ⌘ Read more

CachyOS Outperforming Windows 11, Slight Advantage Over Ubuntu & Fedora On AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470
A recent mini PC being benchmarked at Phoronix is the BOSGAME VTA-439 that employs the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 Gorgon Point SoC. With the BOSGAME mini PC having shipped with Microsoft Windows 11, here are some comparison benchmarks of the out-of-the-box Windows 11 performance up against Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Fedora Workstation 44 while also tossing the rolling-release, highly-optimized Arch Linux based CachyOS into … ⌘ Read more

CachyOS Outperforming Windows 11, Ubuntu & Fedora On AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470
A recent mini PC being benchmarked at Phoronix is the BOSGAME VTA-439 that employs the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 Gorgon Point SoC. With the BOSGAME mini PC having shipped with Microsoft Windows 11, here are some comparison benchmarks of the out-of-the-box Windows 11 performance up against Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Fedora Workstation 44 while also tossing the rolling-release, highly-optimized Arch Linux based CachyOS into the benchmarking mix. ⌘ Read more

AMD P-State Linux Driver Patches Can Boost 1%-Low FPS Gaming Performance By 31%
A set of patches posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list implement per-core Energy Performance Preference (EPP) boosting for recently-busy CPUs. This feature is designed to have a dramatic impact for Linux gaming and helping especially with the 1% low frame-rates improving by 31.8% on the Valve Steam Deck… ⌘ Read more

KDE Developer Fixing Long-Standing Bug Over Very Long Small-File Copy Times
Since 2014 there has been a KDE bug report titled Ridiculously slow file copy (multiple small files). With the Dolphin file manager or other KIO-based KDE programs, copying many small files can be much slower than using the cp command directly or other copying programs like rsync, Finally that issue is in the process of being resolved for addressing very slow copy times when dealing with many small files on the KDE Plasma desktop… ⌘ Read more

Linux’s crypto_rng Abstraction Layer Next On The Chopping Block
In addition to the deprecation and stripping down of AF_ALG, another piece of the Linux kernel crypto code steaming ahead toward removal is the crypto_rng abstraction layer… ⌘ Read more

KDE Developer Fixing Long-Standing Bug Over Very Long Small-File Copy Times
Since 2014 there has been a KDE bug report titled Ridiculously slow file copy (multiple small files). With the Dolphin file manager or other KIO-based KDE programs, copying many small files can be much slower than using the cp command directly or other copying programs like rsync, Finally that issue is in the process of being resolved for addressing very slow copy times when dealing with many small files on the KDE Plasma desktop… ⌘ Read more

ASUS Laptop Whisper Mode Support Being Worked On For Linux
ASUS laptops support a feature called “Whisper Mode” that intentionally slows down the fan speed and lowers the CPU clock speed in order to keep the device running cool and quiet. The open-source ASUS Armoury Linux kernel driver is now seeing patches to properly support this Whisper Mode on Linux… ⌘ Read more

AMD PMF Testing Tool Slated For Linux 7.3
Looking to be added to the Linux kernel source tree for the upcoming Linux 7.3 cycle is test_amd_pmf, a small testing application for exercising the AMD Platform Management Framework (PMF) interfaces and dumping various system data points… ⌘ Read more

Mysterious 16-Tile & 32-Tile AMX Implementations Talked Up For More Performance
Last October on Phoronix we were first to point out there being some mysterious intrigue around a new x86 implementation from a “corporate entity other than Intel/AMD” with the developer involved not elaborating on the matter. Now that same developer has posted another semi-cryptic message to the Linux kernel mailing list to talk about 16-tile and 32-tile Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX) implementations. To date Intel only has … ⌘ Read more

Fwupd 2.1.7 Released With Many Bug Fixes
Fwupd 2.1.7 is out today as the newest update to this open-source firmware updating utility that pairs with the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) for offering a nice firmware upgrade story on Linux systems… ⌘ Read more

Framework Laptop 13 Pro: Aiming To Be One Of The Best Upgradeable Linux Laptops
Back in April, Framework Computer announced the Framework Laptop 13 Pro as a ground-up re-design of their modular/upgradeable laptop. This new Framework Laptop 13 Pro features a much larger battery (74Wh), LPCAMM2 memory support, a full CNC aluminum chassis, haptic touchpad, and a new power-optimized touch display. Paired with the very efficient Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” SoCs, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro ends up being … ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu To Provide Virtualization HWE Stack For Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
Ubuntu has long provided hardware enablement “HWE” stacks for Ubuntu LTS releases to provide a newer kernel and Mesa drivers and more for better supporting new/modern hardware on the long-term support Ubuntu Linux releases. With Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, Canonical will also now be providing a virtualization HWE stack for shipping newer virtualization / confidential computing features… ⌘ Read more

AMD “Low Power” CPU Core Type Patches Queued Ahead Of Linux 7.3
Last month I wrote bout new AMD Linux patches introducing a new “low power” CPU core type as an alternative to their standard performance cores and dense efficiency cores. That work now is poised to land with the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel… ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD Developing New NTSYNC Driver For Accelerating Windows NT Sync Primitives
The FreeBSD project published today their Q2-2026 status report that highlights all of their interesting open-source development initiatives for the past quarter. A lot is happening including FreeBSD seeing an AMD ROCm port and also their own NTSYNC driver being created… ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA & Others Form The Open Secure AI Alliance
NVIDIA and more than two dozen other companies have started the Open Secure AI Alliance for helping to keep open-source AI models secure. The other founding members range from Microsoft to Adobe, IBM, Red Hat, SpaceX, OpenClaw, Palantir, and others… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2-rc5 Released: “Once More We Have Quite A Massive -rc5”
In working toward releasing the stable Linux 7.2 kernel in less than one month’s time, out today is Linux 7.2-rc5 to ship this week’s latest bug/regression fixes and help facilitate more testing of this in-development kernel version… ⌘ Read more

GNU Binutils 2.47 Released With More RISC-V Extensions, New Options
Along with this weekend’s release of GNU C Library 2.44, the GNU Binutils 2.47 release is also now available for this important set of binary utilities common to Linux systems and other platforms with the GNU toolchain… ⌘ Read more

“KVM Chainsaw” Expected To Hit Linux 7.3 For Dealing With God Data Structure
A patch series that appears destined for the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window is what’s dubbed the “KVM Chainsaw” as a major code clean-up in dealing with the kvm_mmu “god data structure”… ⌘ Read more

User Frustrations Over The “Tragic State of FreeBSD Audio/Sound” Support
Besides the FreeBSD graphics and WiFi drivers lagging behind Linux and other operating systems, the FreeBSD audio driver support and handling of audio streams with FreeBSD on the desktop can be problematic depending upon the hardware/system. One of the most active mailing list threads this week in the FreeBSD camp was over the “tragic state” of FreeBSD audio/sound support… ⌘ Read more

Auto-CPUFreq 3.1 Adds Monitoring Mode To GUI, New Configuration Options & Fixes
Auto-CPUFreq is one of the open-source projects striving to be a CPU speed and power optimizer for Linux systems to improve battery life without making any real compromises to the user experience. Out today is v3.1 as the newest feature release of Auto-CPUFreq… ⌘ Read more

Realtek RTL8723B/RTL8723BS Trying To Be Tacked On To The RTW88 Linux Driver
Since 2017 in Linux 4.12 has been the Realtek rtl8723bs WiFi driver where it was introduced into the staging area and remains there nearly a decade later. The rtl8723bs driver for this Realtek 802.11n WiFi SDIO driver has seen a lot of code cleaning over the years and all these years later still is needing lots of code clean-ups from unnecessary code abstractions to dealing with malicious WiFi APs for what Greg Kroah-Hartman has cal … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2-rc5 Fixing Longstanding Bug In IPv4 Networking Over Firewire
Firewire still isn’t dead yet on Linux. Current plans call for maintaining IEEE-1394 Firewire on Linux at least through 2029 and with today’s Linux 7.2-rc5 kernel release is a fix for those wanting to leverage IPv4 networking over Firewire… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu Touch 24.04-2.0 Released With Support For Notches & Rounded Corners
Following last month’s beta release, Ubuntu Touch 24.04-2.0 is now available as the latest feature release for this Ubuntu 24.04 LTS derived mobile operating system for select smartphones and tablets… ⌘ Read more

Fedora Working To Establish Conflict of Interest Policy
Posted this week is a draft copy of the Fedora Conflict of Interest policy being worked on for dealing with identifying, disclosing, and managing any actual, actual, or perceived conflicts of interest within the Fedora Project… ⌘ Read more

Kiwi Menu Continues Bringing macOS Vibes To GNOME
Kiwi Menu as the macOS-inspired quick menu option for the GNOME Shell desktop is continuing to enhance its macOS-esque experience on GNOME… ⌘ Read more

GNU C Library 2.44 Released With /etc/tunables.conf, More Optimizations
GNU developers today released GNU C Library “glibc” 2.44 as the newest feature release for this critical library to modern Linux systems and other platforms… ⌘ Read more