Servo Browser Engine Continues Broadening Web Compatibility, New Features
The Servo open-source browser engine project is finally out with their status report highlighting the improvements made back in September. There is expanded web compatibility, new HTML and JavaScript features, WebGL2 improvements, and continued work on expanding the embed capabilities of this engine… ⌘ Read more
Linux’x New Core MM Tree Ready With Numerous Fixes For “Nasty Long-Standing Bugs”
New to the Linux 7.4 kernel cycle is the Core MM tree as the route for herding some of the core memory management Linux kernel patches to the mainline kernel rather than it all going through Andrew Morton’s “MM” tree. As the second pull request from this new kernel tree, a number of fixes were sent out today to address “nasty long-standing bugs” within the kernel… ⌘ Read more
3M To Pay Over $7 Billion To Settle ‘Forever Chemical’ Groundwater Claims
3M has agreed to pay up to $7.35 billion over nine years to settle claims from as many as 120,000 people who say they were sickened by PFAS-contaminated groundwater near military bases, airports and other locations where firefighting foam was used. The Associated Press reports that 3M “did not admit liability,” noting that the settle … ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 Showing Few Performance Gains With Initial Benchmarks On AMD Ryzen Threadripper
In the first round of benchmarking the in-development Linux 7.4 kernel there are some performance improvements – and some small regressions – worth noting over the current Linux 7.3 stable kernel. This first round of Linux 7.4 kernel benchmarking was on a System76 Thelio Major workstation with AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9980X. ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.3 Will More Than Likely Be This Year’s LTS Kernel
While the Linux 7.4 kernel will be released in the 2026 calendar year in the last week or two of December if the schedule holds, it turns out Linux 7.3 is likely to be this year’s Long Term Support kernel version… ⌘ Read more
SteamOS 0.5.7 Beta for Steam Frame brings WebXR, improved settings and more
Valve just released SteamOS 0.5.7 Beta for Steam Frame bringing with it some settings changes, along with support for WebXR with Chromium.
Read the full article on [GamingOnLinux](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/11/steamos-0-5-7-beta-for-steam-frame-brings-webxr-improved-settings … ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 Features Steam Frame VR Headset, More AMD Zen 6 Enablement & Initial Apple M4 / A18 Pro Bring-Up
The Linux 7.4 kernel is hopefully going to be this year’s Long Term Support (LTS) kernel version and is coming jam-packed with new features and changes. ⌘ Read more
Linux Preparing Faster FAT32 Performance In 2027 With Up To 4.06x Improvement
In addition to some significant performance improvements for FAT32 in Linux 7.4, more performance improvements are on the way. For what will likely land in Linux 7.5 is up to a 4.06x improvement demonstrated for this aging file-system… ⌘ Read more
The Linux Kernel Preparing To Remove The Last Of Its MMX Optimized Code
For what will likely be merged to the Linux 7.5 kernel, the mainline kernel is preparing to drop its last optimization its been carrying for far outdated MMX processors. This affects the likes of Intel Pentium MMX and Pentium II processors running modern software with up-to-date kernels when Linux 7.5 is released in 2027… ⌘ Read more
In more frustrating news, I did something to my primary laptop, and now it crawls along like a 2005 Celeron trying to run Windows Vista.
My laptop is nothing too special (a Lenovo powered by an i7-1255U (4+8) @ 4.70 GHz with integrated “Iris Xe” graphics), but I’ve been running Manjaro Linux (with KDE Plasma) on it for the past couple of years, and apart from the odd pamac / pacman / “Add Remove Software” inconsistency (or Plasma widget issue), it’s been running pretty well.
Then, a few days ago, it started bugging about updates, and yesterday it added complaints about an unsupported kernel, so I finally pulled the trigger on it, and boy do I regret it.
I initially kept having issues downloading all of the updates (it was trying to download some kind of non-existent Quake-related library, which I had to remove), and I also had issues getting rid of the unsupported 7.1 kernel (due to some “meta” packages that had been installed), but in the end, I resolved both issues, got the kernel removed and the updates installed, and everything seemed fine after the post-update reboot… for about 10 minutes.
And that’s when the machine just decided to start moving at 1/3 speed: typing, moving the cursor, changing windows - everything started acting like it was 2008.
When I first tried to diagnose it, top showed kwin_wayland eating 50% of the CPU, and plasmashell another 10%, but it wasn’t consistent (they both came and went). I disabled all of the desktop effects, which helped some, as did blanking my plasma config (setting my desktop back to default), but things are still noticeably laggier than they were a few days ago.
Someone online suggested freeing up 25% space total on my root drive (which typically runs 90-95% full), so I’ve been cleaning up (and offloading) as much as I can. If that doesn’t work and I don’t find a solution by the end of the week, I’ll probably have to backup my data, wipe the machine clean, and start fresh. 🙃
Linux 7.4-rc1 Released With Nice Performance Improvements, AMD Ryzen Zen 6 Preparations & AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 Default
Even with Linus Torvalds having been on holiday, Linux 7.4-rc1 is out today on-schedule for capping off the Linux 7.4 merge window… ⌘ Read more
AI Makes Linux 7.4 Merge Window the Largest in Kernel History
“On a Git commit basis, the Linux 7.4 merge window has been the busiest on record,” writes Phoronix,” with 19,671 commits since Linux 7.3:
As of this morning in Linux Git ahead of v7.4-rc1, the kernel source tree is up to 41,605,120 lines. That’s from 5,193,578 blank lines, 4,993,604 lines of comments, and 31,417,938 lines of detected code. Or nearly … ⌘ Read more
The Linux 7.4 Merge Window Is Easily The Largest In Kernel History
After writing this morning with some stats about the size of the Linux 7.4 merge window and the kernel’s source tree approaching 42 million lines, I was curious to run some numbers for putting the size of the merge window into perspective against the major kernel releases of the past 15 years. This shows the definite recent uptick due to AI/LLM activity… ⌘ Read more
OverlayFS Sees Many Fixes Thanks To AI Code Review
Merged this weekend for Linux 7.4 and also marked for back-porting to current stable kernel versions are a number of fixes to the OverlayFS union mount file-system… ⌘ Read more
AI Use In The Linux Kernel, Microsoft Defender On Linux & Other October Highlights
October brought the releases of Linux 7.3, Ubuntu 26.10, the KDE Plasma 6.8 desktop, and a wealth of other open-source software releases. The expanding use of AI/LLMs within Linux kernel development also made for interesting discussions in October. Microsoft bringing their Defender software to the Linux desktop was perhaps the biggest surprise out of October. Here is a look back at the past month… ⌘ Read more
Linux’s Perf Python Scripts More Robust & Faster With Linux 7.4
Merged this weekend to Linux 7.4 Git were all of the perf subsystem tooling updates. Most notable to these tooling updates for dealing with performance counters and more on Linux is an overhaul to the Python code… ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 Merge Window Saw Nearly 20k Commits, Source Tree Approaching 42 Million Lines
Linux 7.3 started out just under 41 million lines in total in the kernel source tree. In the end the Linux v7.3 tag came in at 41,019,555 lines as measured by cloc while now with Linux 7.4 we are inching ever closer to 42 million lines. On a Git commit basis, the Linux 7.4 merge window has been the busiest on record… ⌘ Read more
New Linux 7.4 Feature For Reducing AI Noise Already Reverted Due To A “Crazy Beast”
A new feature merged last week for Linux 7.4 to help reduce AI/LLM generated noise from invalid/irrelevant testing configurations is now reverted due to a “crazy beast” in the VFIO subsystem… ⌘ Read more
Ceph In Linux 7.4 Adds Global Mount Option For Lazy I/O
The Ceph kernel client changes have been submitted for Linux 7.4 ahead of its merge window expected to wrap up on Sunday… ⌘ Read more
AMD Ryzen Zen 6 Looks Like It Will Be In Good Shape With Linux 7.4, Laptop Improvements
The x86 platform driver changes were merged this week to the Linux 7.4 kernel ahead of the merge window closing this weekend… ⌘ Read more
Open source evolution sim ‘Thrive’ v1.7 works towards completing the multicellular stage
The multicellular stage is getting more complete for the open source evolution sim Thrive, with version 1.7 out now.
Read the full article on [GamingOnLinux](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/10/open-source-evolution-sim-thrive-v1-7-works-towards-completing-the-m … ⌘ Read more
AMD PerfOpt Makes it Into Linux 7.4 As A Nice Performance Boost For AMD iGPUs
As anticipated, the AMD PerfOpt feature was picked up for the Linux 7.4 kernel. As shown already in multiple Phoronix benchmarks, AMD PerfOpt makes for a nice performance boost for AMD integrated graphics, especially for AI workloads… ⌘ Read more
I3C Hub & HDR-DDR Support Merged For Linux 7.4
The I3C changes for Linux 7.4 were submitted this week by Bootlin’s Alexandre Belloni and subsequently merged… ⌘ Read more
RISC-V Has A Nice Portable Performance Optimization With Linux 7.4
The RISC-V architecture changes were merged today for the Linux 7.4 kernel with one nice optimization standing out… ⌘ Read more
F2FS Adds Opt-In Multi-Grain Timestamps With Linux 7.4, Other Improvements
The F2FS (Flash Friendly File-System) improvements have been merged for Linux 7.4 to further enhance this flash-optimized solution… ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 Networking Brings Hardware Pacing Offload, New Drivers & More Performance
The many Linux wired and wireless networking driver improvements were merged this week for the ongoing Linux 7.4 merge window…. ⌘ Read more
FAT32 File-System Seeing As Much As 265x Improvement With Linux 7.4
A change merged for Linux 7.4 is showing some mighty big speed-ups for the FAT32 file-system… ⌘ Read more
Graphics/NPU Driver Changes Already Begin Queuing Up For What Will Be Linux 7.5
Since last week drm-misc-next pull requests have already been sent out to DRM-Next to begin staging new feature code for what’s intended for the Linux 7.5 kernel cycle kicking off at the end of the year… ⌘ Read more
KSMBD Adds New Options With Linux 7.4
A number of improvements to KSMBD, the in-kernel SMB3 file server, were merged for the Linux 7.4 kernel… ⌘ Read more
GXVK: 3Dfx Glide API Implemented Atop Vulkan For Modern Usage
The open-source D7VK project that implements the Direct3D 7 / 6 / 5 / 3 APIs atop the Vulkan API for faster, modern performance is out with a new release. This new D7VK 2.4 release came as a bit of a surprise since it was just last month D7VK announced its maturity status and more or less in maintenance mode. But brought up in today’s D7VK 2.4 announcement is an even bigger surprise: there’s now an implementation of the 3Dfx Glide API atop Vulkan… ⌘ Read more
CDC Warns of Rising Threat of Drug-Resistant Germs
The CDC estimates that 19 drug-resistant pathogens cause 9.7 million infections and more than 50,000 deaths annually in the U.S., with resistance continuing to outpace development of new treatments. “The agency considers this problem to be one of our most urgent public health threats,” reports NBC News. From the report: The report is the CDC’s first comprehensive assessm … ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 Introduces DMA-BUF Support To I/O Path With IO_uring
Merged today for the ongoing Linux 7.4 merge window is the infrastructure for enabling DMA-BUF support in the kernel’s I/O path with the wonderful IO_uring framework… ⌘ Read more
AMD EPYC Zen 6 PML Support, ARM64 On s390 Merged For Linux 7.4 KVM
The many Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) improvements have been merged for Linux 7.4 to deliver a number of new features for different server processors… ⌘ Read more
Linux’s Modern NTFS Driver Now Supports Alternate Data Streams (ADS)
Merged back in Linux 7.1 was the new NTFS kernel driver implementation for better supporting Microsoft’s NTFS file-system on Linux. Since then new features and improvements have continued to land for this NTFS driver with some more notable additions also coming in Linux 7.4… ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 Expands Sensor Monitoring For More ASUS & MSI Motherboards, New Minisforum Driver
With the Linux 7.4 kernel there are more MSI and ASUS motherboards with sensor monitoring support along with a variety of other additions to help broaden the selection of supported systems for hardware sensor monitoring under Linux. It’s another busy cycle for the HWMON subsystem… ⌘ Read more
Initial Support For The Apple M4 & Apple A18 Pro Make It Into Linux 7.4
The many SoC patches have landed within the Linux 7.4 kernel providing support for dozens of new boards as well as a number of new SoCs like the Apple M4 and the A18 Pro as found in the MacBook Neo. The Google Tensor 5 was also finally mainlined along with Pixel 10 devices. Plus some unreleased Qualcomm SoC support rounds out the bunch… ⌘ Read more
Steam Frame VR Headset Sees Mainline Support With Linux 7.4
The mainline Linux 7.4 kernel will be capable of running on the Steam Frame VR headset… ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 Preps CXL For Very Neat Dynamic Capacity Devices “DCD”
The Compute Express Link (CXL) subsystem changes were merged today for the Linux 7.4 kernel. The fun work this cycle is preparing to support Dynamic Capacity Devices… ⌘ Read more
Intel IPU8 Support Upstreamed In Linux 7.4 For Nova Lake Laptops
The media subsystem changes have been merged for the Linux 7.4 kernel. Most notable is Intel IPU8 support being introduced for the next-gen image processing unit in high-end Nova Lake laptops.. ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 EFI Brings Improvement For Helping Systemd When Kernel Booted Directly
The EFI updates have been merged for the Linux 7.4 kernel and include an improvement for when the system was booted directly into the kernel on EFI-based systems without using a bootloader like GRUB or systemd-boot… ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 Begins Employing New “Core MM” Tree
Core memory management patches to the Linux kernel have typically been routed to mainline via Andrew Morton’s “MM” branch, which is where also a variety of broader memory management related patches are also queued like all the ongoing work to DAMON/DAMOS. Kernel maintainers have now agreed to a new “Core MM” tree as the home for all of the core memory management changes moving forward… ⌘ Read more
Linux Fixes AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Regression Due To Cache Aware Scheduling
Merged for Linux 7.4 Git and marked for back-porting to Linux 7.2/7.3 stable is a regression fix affecting at least the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 “Strix Point” laptop SoC when making use of Cache Aware Scheduling… ⌘ Read more
EXT4 Lands Optional Buffered IOmap For Significant Performance Win With Large Writes
The EXT4 file-system changes were merged Sunday night for the ongoing Linux 7.4 merge window. The headline feature of EXT4 in this new kernel version is opt-in support for buffered IOmap usage that can lead to “significant” performance improvements for large writes… ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 Sound Changes Merged: “The AI Flood Continues”
Linux sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai of SUSE began the Linux 7.4 sound pull request by noting that “the AI flood continues” with there continuing to be a lot of new patches coming as a result of AI/LLM agents devising patches as well as uncovering new kernel bugs… ⌘ Read more
Cheap GameSir Nova Lite Gaming Controller Supported By Linux 7.4
Following all the HID driver updates/additions in Linux 7.4, the input subsystem changes were merged this weekend for this new kernel version… ⌘ Read more
Realtek rtl8723bs Driver Graduates Out Of Staging Area In Linux 7.4
After nearly a decade in the Linux kernel’s staging area and being worked on by many different kernel developer newcomers, the Realtek rtl8723bs graduated out of the staging area and is now a full-fledged member of the Linux networking subsystem… ⌘ Read more
AMD 600 Series Chipsets Now Have Temperature Monitoring Support On Linux
With the Linux 7.4 kernel and also marked for back-porting to the v7.2 and v7.3 series is finally the ability to monitor temperature sensors on AMD 600 Series chipsets that launched alongside the Ryzen 7000 series processors… ⌘ Read more
Google’s C Binder Driver Removed With Rust Binder Ready For “Few Billion Devices”
Linus Torvalds merged the “char/misc” changes for the Linux 7.4 kernel driver on Saturday. Most notable this cycle for char/misc is what’s being removed: Google’s C-written Binder driver has left the kernel with the Rust-based modern Binder driver ready to take for the role of being used by all future Android devices… ⌘ Read more
Linux 7.4 Block Updates Range From Floppy Disk Driver Fixes To Apple M4 NVMe Support
The Linux 7.4 block/storage and IO_uring updates were merged today for the ongoing merge window. With the breadth of Linux hardware support, the pull request varies from fixes to Linux’s floppy driver to enabling support for NVMe storage on Apple M4 devices… ⌘ Read more
SteamOS 3.9.5 Released With Linux 7.2 Kernel, KDE Plasma 6.7 Desktop & Other Updates
On Friday Valve released SteamOS 3.9.5 as their first stable release in the SteamOS 3.9 series. This brings all the great improvements previously available in preview form with many package updates and other enhancements… ⌘ Read more