DM-INLINECRYPT Expected For Linux 7.2 To Leverage Inline Encryption
Queued for merging as part of the DeviceMapper changes for the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel cycle is the new dm-inlinecrypt target for leveraging inline block device encryption… ⌘ Read more

Linux Drivers For The AMD Elan SoCs From The 1990s On Track For Retirement
Merged for the current Linux 7.1 cycle was beginning to phase out the Intel 486 processor support from the mainline kernel moving forward. That initial step with Linux 7.1 was dropping the various Kconfig options to allow compiling Linux kernel builds for targeting various i486 platforms. As part of that, the AMD Elan SoC configuration patches were dropped. The next step is proceeding on the AMD Elan side with beginning to remove the … ⌘ Read more

Linux Mint To Begin Publishing HWE ISOs For Better Hardware Support
Due to Linux Mint moving to a longer development cycle with their next release not due until December, Linux Mint developers have decided to begin regularly publishing hardware enablement “HWE” ISOs with newer Linux kernel versions to provide better support for new hardware… ⌘ Read more

Linux’s sched_ext Sees A Bunch Of Bug Fixes Following Increased AI Code Review
Just days after the Linux 7.1-rc1 kernel release, the Linux kernel’s extensible scheduler class “sched_ext” is seeing a lot of bug fixes. Many of these bug fixes aren’t just from the Linux 7.1 merge window but a number date back many kernel cycles. This uptick in bug fixes for sched_ext is coming due to increased AI code review… ⌘ Read more

New NTFS Driver Sees A Number Of Fixes Ahead Of Linux 7.1-rc1
With the Linux 7.1-rc1 kernel release due out tomorrow to cap off the Linux 7.1 merge window, one of the most notable additions this cycle is the introduction of the new NTFS driver that aims to provide better performance and more modern features than the existing NTFS3 in-kernel driver that was originally contributed by Paragon Software… ⌘ Read more

Many Intel & AMD Laptop Improvements Merged For Linux 7.1
As usual in recent years, there were many x86 platform driver changes merged this cycle for benefiting modern AMD Ryzen and Intel Core (Ultra) laptops. A variety of new features and laptop hardware support additions were merged for Linux 7.1… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 Adds Support For 12 New SoCs, Other ARM & RISC-V Hardware
All of the SoC updates were recently merged for the ongoing Linux 7.1 kernel cycle. Most of the activity as usual is on the Arm side but also with some RISC-V additions too for the Linux 7.1 kernel… ⌘ Read more

Is Linux Mint In Trouble?
BrianFagioli writes: The developers behind Linux Mint say the project is rethinking its release strategy and moving toward a longer development cycle, with the next version now expected around Christmas 2026. In a monthly update, project lead Clement Lefebvre said the team reached a “crossroads” and needs more flexibility to fix bugs, improve the desktop, and adapt to rapid changes across the Linux ecosystem. The upcoming … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 Picks Up The MMC Changes After Rejected By Linus In Linux 7.0
Back during the Linux 7.0 merge window the MMC changes were rejected by Linus Torvalds as “complete garbage” that wasn’t building properly and not vetted through linux-next. He went without pulling any MMC changes for the v7.0 cycle while now for Linux 7.1 the code has been better tested and successfully merged… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 Delivers Performance Regression Fix For Sheaves
The Linux 7.1 kernel is bringing performance improvements for Sheaves, the per-CPU caching layer introduced several kernel cycles ago (Linux 6.18) for better efficiency on today’s high core count hardware. Sheaves began as an opt-in feature but since Linux 7.0 is now being used for all caches… ⌘ Read more

Amazon Luna Ends Its Support for Purchased Games and Third-Party Subscriptions
Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service is making some changes, reports Engadget:

It’s no longer possible to buy Ubisoft+ and Jackbox Games subscriptions or standalone games through Luna. Amazon will automatically cancel any active subscriptions bought through Luna at the end of customers’ next billing cycle. If you have … ⌘ Read more

AMD & Valve Deliver Better Kaveri / Kabini APU Experience With Upcoming Linux 7.1
A nice Easter surprise are some last minute updates submitted to DRM-Next of the final planned AMDGPU/AMDKFD feature changes for the upcoming Linux 7.1 feature cycle… ⌘ Read more

Do Emergency Microsoft, Oracle Patches Point to Wider Issues?
“Emergency out-of-band fixes issued by enterprise IT giants Microsoft and Oracle have shone a spotlight on issues around both update cycles and patching,” reports Computer Weekly:

Microsoft’s emergency update, KB5085516, addresses an issue that arose after installing the mandatory cumulative updates pushed live on Patch Tuesday earlier this month. Accordi … ⌘ Read more

Intel Xe Driver In Linux 7.1 Enabling THP For Device Pages As A Big SVM Win
Sent out today was a new batch of “drm-xe-next” material of Intel Xe kernel graphics driver improvements ready for the upcoming Linux 7.1 kernel cycle. Standing out in this pull is enabling Transparent Hugepages (THP) support for drm_pagemap as a big win for those making use of Shared Virtual Memory (SVM) for GPU compute and the like… ⌘ Read more

ASUS Armoury & HP WMI Drivers Add More Laptops Ahead Of Linux 7.0-rc6
Merged today was another round of platform-drivers-x86 changes for the ongoing Linux 7.0 cycle. There are bug fixes plus some new hardware support additions that make this merge notable. Due to the new hardware support amounting to just device IDs and not risking existing hardware support, it’s fine for merging at this late stage of Linux 7.0 development… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 sched_ext To Add “SCX_ENQ_IMMED” For Tighter Control When Tasks Land On A CPU
The Linux kernel’s extensible scheduler class “sched_ext” to allow for custom CPU scheduling policies as BPF programs continues enabling new functionality. Queued up in the sched_ext development code ahead of next month’s Linux 7.1 cycle is the new SCX_ENQ_IMMED capability for enabling tighter control over when tasks land on a CPU… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 To Retire UDP-Lite - Allows For Better Performance With Cleansed Code
The upcoming Linux 7.1 kernel cycle is set to retire UDP-Lite support. The UDP-Lite protocol allowed for partial checksums where potentially damaged/corrupted packets are still delivered to the application. Since the Linux 2.6.20 days there has been UDP-Lite support but the kernel is now set to retire it given breakage that has persisted for years and cleaning up the networking code can yield a performance advantage for non-UDP-Lit … ⌘ Read more

Hangs & Performance Regression On Large Systems Fixed For Linux 7.0-rc4
This week’s “sched/urgent” pull request was sent out today of scheduler updates for the ongoing Linux 7.0 cycle. Notable this week are fixing some hangs as well as a possible performance regression on large systems… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 cpupower Now Handles systemd Service Setting EPP, Intel P-State Turbo Boost
The cpupower tool that lives within the Linux kernel source tree has squeezed in a few improvements today for the ongoing Linux 7.0 development cycle… ⌘ Read more

AMD DCN 4.2 IP, GFX 12.1 Updates For AMDGPU Driver In Linux 7.1 Plus GCN 1.1 APU DC
AMD has begun staging AMDGPU and AMDKFD kernel driver improvements for the upcoming Linux 7.1 cycle… ⌘ Read more

Google Chrome Is Switching To a Two-Week Release Cycle
Google is accelerating Chrome’s major release cadence from four weeks to two starting with version 153 on September 8th. “…our goal is to ensure developers and users have immediate access to the latest performance improvements, fixes and new capabilities,” says Google. “Building on our history of adapting our release process to match the demands of a modern web, C … ⌘ Read more

Google Chrome Moving To A Two-Week Release Cycle
Google announced today that beginning later this year they are moving the Chrome web browser from its four week release cycle down to a two week release cadence… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 Expected To See Nice Improvements For Reducing HRTICK Timer Overhead
A big set of kernel patches look like they will be submitted for the Linux 7.1 kernel cycle this spring to optimize the scheduler HRTICK timer and in turn allowing it to be enabled by default… ⌘ Read more

Sub-Scheduler Support Could Be One Of The Most Exciting Features To Come For Linux 7.1
While there are many great Linux 7.0 features with that still-young development cycle, looking ahead to Linux 7.1 this summer there’s an interesting feature on track: cgroup sub-scheduler support for sched_ext… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Lands New TI RGB LED Driver With “Autonomous Animation Engine” Control
The LED subsystem updates for the Linux kernel typically aren’t too noteworthy each kernel cycle but with Linux 7.0 is a new TI RGB LED driver that captured my attention in being curious over its “autonomous animation engine” integration… ⌘ Read more

Power Sequencing Driver For PCIe M.2 Connectors Makes It Into Linux 7.0
The power sequencing subsystem updates have been merged for the Linux 7.0 cycle. Typically not an area of the kernel too exciting but one new driver addition is the “pwrseq-pcie-m2” to provide power sequencing for PCIe M.2 connectors… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Merges Support For Rock Band 4 PS4 / PS5 Guitars Plus More Laptop Quirks
The HID subsystem changes were merged this week for the ongoing Linux 7.0 kernel merge window. Among the Human Interface Devices (HID) work this cycle were supporting more guitars while also adding more device IDs and different laptop quirks… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Wires Up Arm’s 64-byte Single-Copy Atomic Instructions LS64/LS64V
Beyond all of the exciting Intel/AMD x86_64 changes and improvements to enjoy with the upcoming Linux 7.0, there is one notable ARM64 feature addition this kernel cycle… ⌘ Read more

Sheaves Ready To Play A Bigger Role In Linux 7.0
The slab memory allocator feature updates have been merged for the Linux 7.0 kernel. Most notable this cycle is expanded use of the recently-introduced Sheaves functionality… ⌘ Read more

Intel Posts 2026 Update For Cache Aware Scheduling On Linux
Not in time for the current Linux 7.0 cycle but posted for another round of review is Intel’s latest work around Cache Aware Scheduling for enhancing the performance of modern CPUs with multiple cache domains. This is the first set of updates to Cache Aware Scheduling for the new year and succeed the v2 patches from early December. This work not only benefits modern Intel CPUs but our testing has shown can also provide some very nice gains too for … ⌘ Read more

Is Linux Mint Burning Out? Developers Consider Longer Release Cycle
BrianFagioli writes: The Linux Mint developers say they are considering adopting a longer development cycle, arguing that the project’s current six month cadence plus LMDE releases leaves too little room for deeper work. In a recent update, the team reflected on its incremental philosophy, independence from upstream decisions like Snap, and … ⌘ Read more

Linus Torvalds Rejects MMC Changes For Linux 7.0 Cycle: “Complete Garbage”
The Linux MultiMediaCard “MMC” subsystem was set to see some new hardware support, optimized support for secure erase/trim on some eMMCs, and a variety of other improvements. But all of the MMC changes are rejected and will be for the duration of the Linux 7.0 cycle due to an apparent lack of testing and vetting via linux-next that led Linus Torvalds to calling it “complete garbage” and “untested crap”… ⌘ Read more

Linux Mint Developing New Wayland-Compatible Screensaver
The Linux Mint developers have been hard at work continuing to develop new features following their recent Mint 22.3 release. There is continued enhancements around keyboard support, a new administration tool for users, and there are also considerations being made around moving to a longer development cycle between Linux Mint releases… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Bringing Mainline Support For The SpacemiT K3 RVA23 SoC, Qualcomm Kaanapali
The various SoC and platform Device Tree additions were sent out today for the Linux 7.0 kernel. Easily most exciting on the SoC side this cycle among the ARM and RISC-V changes is getting support ready for the SpacemiT K3 RVA23 SoC… ⌘ Read more

Blender 5.1 Lands Raycast Nodes, Blender Adjusting Release Cycle Moving Forward
Two interesting bits of Blender news this week for those fond of this leading open-source 3D modeling software… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Released With Better Support For Older AMD GPUs, DRM Color Pipeline API
As anticipated due to the extra week for the cycle given end of year holidays, Linus Torvalds today released the Linux 6.19 stable kernel as the first major release of 2026. There is a lot in store with this early 2026 kernel release… ⌘ Read more

Intel Xe Linux Driver Will No Longer Block D3cold For All Battlemage GPUs
Merged a year ago to the Linux kernel’s Xe graphics driver was a change to disable D3Cold across all Battlemage GPUs. This was done due instability issues around the D3cold to D0 power state transition. Finally with the upcoming Linux 7.0 kernel cycle that restriction is being loosened with restoring D3cold support with Battlemage GPUs aside from a specific NUC… ⌘ Read more

Linux Dropping SMC TCP ULP Support For Being “Fundamentally Broken”
Merged four years ago to the Linux kernel networking subsystem’s Shared Memory Communications (SMC) code was TCP Upper Layer Protocol (ULP) support for allowing applications to replace TCP with the SMC protocol in-place as a transparent replacement. Except for the next kernel cycle it’s set to be reverted after realizing it’s “fundamentally broken.”.. ⌘ Read more

cTGP Graphics Power Setting Coming For Uniwill / TUXEDO Laptops With Linux 7.0
Upstreamed for the Linux 6.19 kernel is the Uniwill laptop platform driver for exposing more features/settings for laptops made by this Taiwanese OEM/ODM, including the laptops from TUXEDO Computers. Coming for the next kernel cycle is further extending the Uniwill platform driver for now having support for adjusting the custom total graphics power “cTGP” for those laptops with a dedicated GPU… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Aims To Replace More Caching Code With Sheaves For “Hopefully” Improved Performance
Introduced to the mainline Linux kernel last year was “sheaves” as an opt-in per-CPU array-based caching layer. Sheaves was merged back in Linux 6.18 and while it started as an opt-in caching layer, the plan is to replace more CPU slabs / caches with sheaves. Queued up for slated introduction in the upcoming Linux 7.0 cycle is replacing more of those caches with sheaves… ⌘ Read more

Intel Xe Linux Driver Updated To Disable GuC Power DCC For Panther Lake
Queued up in DRM-Next for the Intel open-source graphics driver ahead of the Linux 7.0 kernel cycle is expanding GPU temperature sensor reporting, multi-device SVM prep, multi-queue support for Crescent Island, Nova Lake display support, and other feature work. With the Linux 6.19 stable release fast approaching, DRM-Next is now focusing in on reading early fixes with concluding feature activity for this next merge window… ⌘ Read more

IO_uring Zero-Copy Large Receive Buffer Support To Provide A Nice Performance Win
Slated for introduction in the next kernel cycle (Linux 6.20~7.0) is introducing large receive buffer support for IO_uring’s zero-copy receive code path. This large receive buffer support can be very beneficial for those with higher-end networking hardware capable of handling the larger buffers for some significant performance and efficiency wins… ⌘ Read more

Revisiting The Linux 6.19 Performance With “NEXT_BUDDY” Now Disabled
Back at the start of the Linux 6.19 kernel cycle I ran benchmarks showing some scheduler performance regressions with the new kernel. Fortunately, two weeks out from the Linux 6.19 stable release, merged this weekend was disabling the scheduler’s NEXT_BUDDY feature due to performance regressions. Here are some fresh benchmarks looking at the latest Linux 6.19 Git state with/without NEXT_BUDDY and comparing it to Linux 6.18 stable for reference. ⌘ Read more

LG Gram Style 14 Laptop To See Working Speaker Support With Linux 7.0
For the Intel-powered LG Gram Style 14 laptop one of the Linux support caveats is the internal speakers not working properly under Linux, but with a patch expected for the upcoming Linux 6.20~7.0 kernel cycle it will finally fix the laptop speaker support for one of the laptop models in this series… ⌘ Read more

AMD Sends In A Variety Of Graphics Driver Fixes Ahead Of Linux 7.0 Cycle
This week’s batch of AMDGPU and AMDKFD changes queued up ahead of the next kernel merge window is focused on delivering a variety of driver fixes… ⌘ Read more

Wine-Staging 11.1 Adds Patches For Enabling Recent Adobe Photoshop Versions On Linux
Following yesterday’s release of Wine 11.1 for kicking off the new post-11.0 development cycle, Wine-Staging 11.1 is now available for this experimental/testing version of Wine that present is around 254 patches over the upstream Wine state… ⌘ Read more

A Decade In The Making, Time Slice Extension Could Be Merged For Linux 7.0
With the upcoming Linux 6.20~7.0 kernel cycle it looks like the time slice extension work could finally been merged, which has seen various attempts over the past decade. Time slice extension for the Linux kernel implemented using Restartable Sequences “RSEQ” allows user-space processes to request a temporary, opportunistic extension of their CPU time slice without being preempted… ⌘ Read more

Wine 11.1 Released In Kicking Off The New Development Cycle
Following the release of Wine 11.0 stable just under two weeks ago, Wine 11.1 is now available as the first of the bi-weekly development snapshots for Wine in leading toward the Wine 12.0 release next January… ⌘ Read more

My washing machine is making funny noises and I’m this 🤏 close to just throwing it out and washing everything by hand, instead of buying another expensive enshittified product that’s designed to break down in a couple of years.

Washing is easy anyway, the spin cycle to dry that stuff is the important part …

Linux 7.0 Apple Silicon Device Tree Updates Have All The Bits For USB Type-C Ports
Ahead of the Linux 6.20~7.0 cycle kicking off next month, the Apple Silicon Device Tree updates have been sent out for queuing ahead of that next merge window. Notable this round are the Device Tree additions for rounding out the USB 2.0/3.x support with the USB-C ports… ⌘ Read more