On CPU Physics and CPU Cycles
Article URL: https://6it.dev/blog/on-cpu-physics-and-cpu-cycles-80730

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48513222

Points: 3

# Comments: 0 ⌘ Read more

[$] Automatic mTHP creation in 7.2
The Linux kernel has long tried to use huge pages as a way to improve
performance, sometimes with more success than others. The size of huge
pages has traditionally been imposed by the hardware, which typically only
offers a couple of relatively large options. In more recent times, though,
the use of multi-size transparent huge pages (mTHPs), with more flexible
sizing implemented in software, has been growing. If all goes well, the
7.2 development cycle will include the addition of [a new feature](h … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1-rc7 Released: Stable Hopefully Next Sunday
Last week Linux 7.1-rc6 was larger than Linus Torvalds wished for and for Linux 7.1-rc7 it has come in still heavier than typically seen this late in the cycle, but is shrinking and making Linus comfortable in hopefully releasing Linux 7.1 stable next Sunday… ⌘ Read more

Do Women’s Mate Preferences Change Across the Ovulatory Cycle? A Meta-Analysis [pdf]
Article URL: https://www.martiehaselton.com/_files/ugd/3ae410_aeb76edab75f457aae0c14c4c68d93c0.pdf

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48423541

Points: 8

# Comments: 3 ⌘ Read more

Linux DRM Ioctl Developed By AMD Being Disabled Following Ongoing Security Issue
It’s unfortunately another busy week in the Linux 7.1 kernel space with not everything slowing down so well, late in the cycle and leading to the upcoming 7.1 stable release. This week’s DRM pull request of kernel graphics/accelerator drivers is again heavy on fixes and also ends up disabling an ioctl interface given ongoing security concerns from that code merged last year… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu 26.10 To Begin Laying Foundation For Context-Aware Desktop, Other New Features
Jean Baptiste Lallement of the Canonical Desktop Team today posted a roadmap of many development items they are hoping to tackle for Ubuntu 26.10 due out in October. Some of these desktop plans are more ambitious and will take multiple release cycles to fully realize, but it goes to show their continued investment into the Ubuntu desktop… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Proceeding To Deprecate AF_ALG Due To “Massive Attack Surface”, Drops Offloading
The Linux kernel’s AF_ALG interface for user-space applications to directly access the Linux kernel’s built-in cryptographic engine is proceeding with a quick deprecation cycle due to a “massive attack surface” with increased vulnerabilities coming to light due to AI/LLM-based tooling… ⌘ Read more

Kernel prepatch 7.1-rc6
The 7.1-rc6 kernel prepatch is out for
testing. Linus said: “Well, I wouldn’t call this ‘small’, but it is
certainly smaller than rc5 was. And I don’t think there’s anything
particularly scary here, so maybe we’re still on track for a normal release
cycle. Let’s see.” ⌘ Read more

Linux Networking Still Seeing “Significantly Bigger” Pull Requests Due To AI
Last week’s collection of networking subsystem fixes for Linux 7.1 noted craziness continuing with no end in sight with a large pull request of fixes with many of them spurred on by AI/LLM coding agents. This week it’s “significantly bigger” than prior kernel cycles for this late stage of kernel development due to this assistance of large language models… ⌘ Read more

Btrfs Change Coming For Linux 7.2 Yields Very Healthy Performance Gain
A change coming on the way for the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel cycle is yielding a significant improvement to the direct I/O write performance. While a big gain, technically it’s a regression fix after a change mistakenly dropped the behavior several years ago… ⌘ Read more

Intel To Support DRM Background Color Property With Linux 7.2
Introduced in Linux 7.1 is a dedicated CRTC background color property for DRM graphics/display drivers. The “BACKGROUND_COLOR” property can be used with capable drivers and display controllers as the default background color when not covered by any plane or from transparent regions of higher planes. With the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel cycle, the Intel DRM driver will begin supporting this background color property… ⌘ Read more

Les maraîchers de l’Hérault face à la canicule: «On vit quelque chose qui inverse complètement le cycle du végétal»
La vague de chaleur précoce continue d’écraser le pays avec des températures proches des 40 degrés attendues localement jeudi. Dans le Languedoc, qui a essuyé des pluies record durant l’hiver, des légumiers racontent l’accumulation de «stress» sur leurs cultures et la difficulté de s’adapter. ⌘ Read more

Btrfs Preps Huge Folios Support Ahead Of Linux 7.2
The past few Linux kernel cycles there has been experimental support for large folios with Btrfs while for Linux 7.2 it looks like this modern file-system will be taking things further with huge folios… ⌘ Read more

Linux To Remove ISA Speech Synthesizer Driver That Likely Hasn’t Been Used In Decades
Following the process of phasing out Intel 486 CPU support and other old hardware drivers that were dropped in the Linux 7.1 kernel cycle for reducing the kernel maintenance burden, the upcoming Linux 7.2 cycle is continuing the trend of phasing out some of the old hardware support that is very obsolete, likely having no users on the latest upstream kernels, and no one formally maintaining the obsolete drivers… ⌘ Read more

OneXPlayer Configuration Driver Destined For Linux 7.2
The latest Linux gaming handheld driver work by Derek Clark of Valve’s Linux efforts is the OneXPlayer Configuration Driver that is now set to premiere in the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel cycle… ⌘ Read more

Wine 11.9 Released With Wayland Pointer Warp, Initial Support For System Threads
Wine 11.9 is out today as the newest bi-weekly development release and nearing the half-way point of the development cycle toward Wine 12.0… ⌘ Read more

Debian Release Team: Debian Must Now Ship Reproducible Packages
With half-way through the Debian 14 “Forky” development cycle, the Debian release team is out with an update this weekend and some big news… ⌘ Read more

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

[$] Development statistics for the 7.0 kernel
Linus Torvalds released the 7.0 kernel as
expected on April 12, ending a relatively busy development cycle. The
7.0 release brings a large number of interesting changes; see the LWN
merge-window summaries ( part 1, part 2) for all the details. Here,
instead, comes our traditional look at where those changes came from and
who supported that work. ⌘ Read more

The 7.0 kernel has been released
Linus has released the 7.0 kernel after a
busy nine-week development cycle.

The last week of the release continued the same “lots of small
fixes” trend, but it all really does seem pretty benign, so I’ve
tagged the final 7.0 and pushed it out.

I suspect it’s a lot of AI tool use that will keep finding corner
cases for us for a while, so this may be the “new normal” at least
for a while. Only time will tell.

Significant changes in this release incl … ⌘ 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

[$] Removing read-only transparent huge pages for the page cache
Things do not always go the way kernel developers think they will. When
the kernel gained support for the creation of read-only transparent huge
pages for the page cache in 2019, the developer of that feature, Song Liu,
added a\
Kconfig file entry promising that support for writable huge
pages would arrive “in the next few release cycles”. Over six years
later, that promise is still present, but it wi … ⌘ 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