Transparent Hugepage Performance On Linux 6.18 LTS: Madvise vs. Always
With some Linux distributions like Fedora Workstation and Ubuntu defaulting to “madvise” Transparent Hugepages (THP) while others like CachyOS and openSUSE defaulting to “always”, you may be curious about the madvise vs. always THP difference in modern Linux environments. If so this round of benchmarking is for you in looking at the performance impact of madvise vs. always THP. ⌘ Read more

Revised Steam Survey For December 2025 Puts Linux Gaming Marketshare At 3.58%
Back on the 1st Valve published the Steam Survey results for December 2025 and they put the Linux gaming marketshare at 3.19%, a 0.01% dip from November. But now the December results have been revised with a nice bump to the Linux marketshare… ⌘ Read more

AMD Releases GAIA 0.15 - Positioning It As A Framework/SDK For Building AI PC Agents
Last year AMD announced GAIA as short for “Generative AI Is Awesome”. It started off as a Windows-only AI demo but over time added Linux support along with introducing different AI agents. For going along with AMD’s AI announcements at CES 2026, AMD released GAIA 0.15 where they are now positioning this software as a framework/SDK for building AI PC agents… ⌘ Read more

Radeon Linux Driver Patches For Next-Gen Hardware Point To New NPU Integration
Back in November AMD began posting open-source Linux graphics driver patches for some next-gen graphics IP. Those IP block patches were for MMHUB, PSP, and other blocks making up modern AMD GPUs. The GFXHUB patch pointed it to being part of the GFX12 / RDNA4 family. Out today are new patches for enabling the SMU15 IP and an interesting takeaway there is some apparent NPU integration for future Radeon graphics… ⌘ Read more

Apple SMC Power Driver Posted For Linux To Expose Battery Stats
The newest open-source Apple Silicon driver being submitted for review in working toward its inclusion in the mainline Linux kernel is the Apple Silicon SMC power driver for being able to expose MacBook battery power metrics as well as AC power adapter status reporting under Linux… ⌘ Read more

Patches Posted Seeking To Mainline Support For The Acer Swift SFA14-11 Snapdragon Laptop
Patches posted to the Linux kernel mailing list are hoping to provide mainline support for the Acer Swift SFA14-11 laptop powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 Elite X1E78100 SoC… ⌘ Read more

Linux Kernel AES Library Seeing Improvements For Better Performance & More
A set of 36 patches sent out overnight is making big improvements to the Linux kernel’s AES library. The patches allow for making use of the kernel’s existing architecture-optimized AES code for better performance, that code is also constant-time, lower memory use, and all-around a nice improvement over the status quo… ⌘ Read more

There Is No One Left On Debian’s Data Protection Team
Besides Debian’s aging bug tracker interface, another challenge as the Debian Linux distribution project begins 2026 is that all volunteers have left their Data Protection Team. The Debian Data Protection Team deals with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) issues and related data protection/privacy related matters… ⌘ Read more

Workstation Owner Sadly Marks the End-of-Life for HP-UX
Wednesday marked the end of support for the last and final version of HP-UX, writes OSNews.

They call it “the end of another vestige of the heyday of the commercial UNIX variants, a reign ended by cheap x86 hardware and the increasing popularisation of Linux.”

I have two HP-UX 11i v1 PA-RISC workstations, one of them being my pride and joy: an HP c8000, the last … ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19-rc4 Released Following A Quiet Holiday Week, 6.19-rc8 Already Planned
Following the holidays, Linux 6.19-rc4 was released today in working toward the Linux 6.19 stable kernel release in early February… ⌘ Read more

And now the event loop is not a simple loop around curses’ getch() anymore but it can wait for events on any file descriptor. Here’s a simple test program that waits for connections on a TCP socket, accepts it, reads a line, sends back a line:

https://movq.de/v/93fa46a030/vid-1767547942.mp4

And the scrollbar indicators are working now.

I’ll probably implement timer callbacks using timerfd (even though that’s Linux-only). 🤔

Archboot Adds COSMIC Desktop as a New Install and Rescue Option
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Linux news site Linuxiac:

Archboot, a guided, user-friendly, menu-driven installer for Arch Linux that automates much of the traditional manual installation process (while still allowing advanced users to intervene when needed), has added the COSMIC desktop environment as a new selectable option. The … ⌘ Read more

Manjaro Linux 26.0 Rolling Out - Xfce Edition Recommended If Wanting To Use X11
Package updates for the Arch Linux powered Manjaro Linux distribution have been pushed out for Manjaro 26.0 “Anh-Linh” while updated ISOs are expected to soon become available. The Manjaro 26.0 milestone brings KDE Plasma 6.5 and GNOME 49 but with both of those you may lose X11 session support so they are recommending their Xfce Edition for wanting wanting to continue using an X.Org desktop session… ⌘ Read more

TrixiePup64 2601 Released For Debian 13 Powered Puppy Linux In Wayland & X11 Flavors
For those with fond memories of Puppy Linux as a very lightweight Linux distribution, released last month was a new TrixiePup64 for continuing the Puppy Linux spirit atop Debian. The new TrixiePup64 is based on Debian 13 components while shipping in both X11 and Wayland flavors. Out now is TrixiePup64 2601 as the latest iteration of this lightweight Linux distribution… ⌘ Read more

Linux’s Hung Task Detector Will Be Able To Be Reset For Easing System Administration
Worked on back in 2024 for the Linux kernel was a built-in counter to keep track of the number of hung tasks since boot. That feature for keeping track of the number of hung tasks since boot was merged in Linux 6.13 and exposed via /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_detect_count. For helping ease use around it, new code working its way to the kernel will allow resetting that “hung_task_detect_count” counter… ⌘ Read more

Patches Posted For Bringing Rock Band 4 PS4 / PS5 Guitar Support To Linux
Following Linux 6.19 adding support for CRKD guitar controllers, new patches posted to the Linux kernel mailing list are bringing some additional guitar controllers to Linux. This latest work is around enabling the Rock Band 4 guitars for the PlayStation 4 and PS5 consoles to work under Linux… ⌘ Read more

New AMD Linux Driver Patches Posted For Batch Userptr Allocation Support
A new feature being worked on recently for the AMDKFD kernel compute driver is batch user pointer “userptr” allocation support. With this new user-space API it will become possible to support allocating multiple non-contiguous CPU virtual address ranges that map to a single contiguous GPU virtual address… ⌘ Read more

Box64 v0.4 Improves Support For DRM Protected Games, Steam Is Now More Stable
While Fex-Emu has been getting a lot of attention lately for being Valve-sponsored and powering the upcoming Steam Frame, Box64 continues making progress as another great open-source project for running x86_64 Linux binaries on AArch64 Linux as well as an eye on other architectures like RISC-V… ⌘ Read more

Linux Audio Quirk Handling On The Way For Dell Panther Lake Laptops
Ahead of the initial batch of Intel Panther Lake laptops expected to be showcased at CES next week in Las Vegas, we’re seeing last minute quirk updates for these products expected to soon come to market… ⌘ Read more

GNOME Glycin Adds XPM/XBM Support To Address Fedora’s Last Unsandboxed Image Loader
GNOME’s Glycin project as the Rust-based sandboxed and extendable image loading library now supports XPM and XBM images. This is notable since those formats were the last unsandboxed image loading formats used on Fedora Linux… ⌘ Read more

RADV Driver Lands Another Big Improvement For Early AMD GCN Graphics Cards
Beyond Linux 6.19 switching old AMD GCN 1.0 and 1.1 GPUs to the AMDGPU kernel driver by default for better performance, RADV out-of-the-box, and more, there are still more improvements planned for these aging AMD graphics cards. Timur Kristóf of Valve’s Linux graphics team has been leading the effort to enhance the old graphics card support and on Friday night merged a big improvement for the RADV Vulkan driver in Mesa 26.0… ⌘ Read more

Aeryn OS Continuing To Focus On Tooling & Infrastructure In 2026
The Aeryn OS Linux distribution formerly known as Serpent OS has published a 2025 retrospective to recap the project changes over the past year as well as a look ahead to 2026… ⌘ Read more

Linux Addressing Out-Of-Memory Killer Inaccuracy On Large Core Count Systems
A patch is on the way to the Linux kernel and looks like it could be ready for the 6.20~7.0 kernel for addressing out-of-memory “OOM” killer inaccuracy behavior when dealing with large core count systems… ⌘ Read more

New Linux Patches Allow More Easily Changing The Tux Kernel Boot Logo
A new patch series that was posted this week allow for users to more easily replace the default kernel boot logo. While many of us are long accustomed to seeing the picture of Tux as the kernel boot logo, for those preferring to better customize your console boot experience these patches allow it to be easily manipulated via the kernel configuration “Kconfig” options… ⌘ Read more

Radeon Linux Driver Enhancements, Linux 6.19 Activity & Other December Highlights
During the month of December on Phoronix there was new and original content each and every day, ending the month with 305 original news articles and 25 featured Linux hardware reviews / multi-page benchmark articles. Here is a look back at the most exciting Linux/open-source hardware content in ending out 2025… ⌘ Read more

Steam On Linux Ends 2025 With 3.19% Marketshare, AMD Linux CPU Use Approaches 72%
Back in November Steam on Linux use hit an all-time high at 3.2%. With the still increasing popularity around the Steam Deck powered by the Arch Linux based SteamOS, Linux gaming continuing to grow thanks to Steam Play (Proton), and excitement around the upcoming Steam Frame and Steam Machine hardware, the Linux gaming outlook continues to be positive. The Steam Survey results for December 2025 are out tonight and with just a tiny … ⌘ Read more

Valve’s Linux Efforts, Kernel Improvements & KDE Plasma Wayland Advancements Topped 2025
After looking yesterday at the most viewed Linux hardware reviews and benchmarks of 2025, today’s look is at the most popular open-source/Linux news of the past year. There were 3,286 original news articles on Phoronix during 2025 written by your’s truly, here’s a look back at what excited readers the most over these past twelve months… ⌘ Read more

SDL 3.4 Released With Many New APIs, Better Emscripten & Native PNG Support
Kicking off the new year for Linux gaming and cross-platform gaming at large is the release of the SDL 3.4 library. SDL is part of the Steam runtime and continues to be widely-used for abstracting software/hardware for creating more portable games and other applications… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Lands Fix For Dead WiFi With MediaTek MT792x Wireless
Merged to Linux Git on New Year’s Eve was a fix in the form of a code revert for broken MediaTek WiFi on the in-development Linux 6.19 kernel… ⌘ Read more

More Improvements To Old AMD GPU Support On Linux Are Planned For 2026
With Linux 6.19 aging AMD GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.1 GPUs switched the default kernel driver used to provide for much better performance, RADV Vulkan support out-of-the-box, and other improvements compared to using the legacy Radeon DRM kernel driver. For 2026, Timur Kristóf of Valve’s Linux graphics team has more improvements still planned to enhance these older AMD graphics cards on Linux… ⌘ Read more

AMD Ryzen AI Max, Intel Graphics & Other Linux Benchmarks That Commanded 2025
This looks to be a wrap on 2025, Happy New Year to all the Phoronix readers over the past 21+ years. This year on Phoronix there were 226 original Linux hardware reviews and featured benchmark articles written by your’s truly. Plus another 3,286 original open-source/Linux software and hardware news articles this calendar year. Here were the big topics of 2025 for the featured Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles… ⌘ Read more

Asahi Linux Has Experimental Code For DisplayPort, Apple M3/M4/M5 Bring-Up Still Ongoing
Prominent Asahi Linux developer Sven Peter spoke at this week’s 39th Chaos Communication Congress “39C3” in Hamburg, Germany. He provided an update around the still-in-the-works Apple M3 / M4 / M5 SoC and device support as well as other outstanding features like getting DisplayPort working on Apple Macs under Linux… ⌘ Read more

Intel Meteor Lake On Linux Two Years Post-Launch: 93% The Original Performance
As part of the various end-of-year annual benchmarking comparisons and the like on Phoronix, today is a look at how the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H “Meteor Lake” performance has evolved under Ubuntu Linux in the two years since launching. Plus with next-gen Intel Panther Lake laptops expected to be showcased next week at CES, it’s a good time for revisiting the Meteor Lake performance to see the difference two years have made for Intel Met … ⌘ Read more

Arch Linux Installer Adds CUPS, rEFInd Boot, IWD, COSMIC & Power Management Options
Ahead of the January 2026 ISO refresh for Arch Linux, Archinstall 3.0.15 released today as the newest update to this convenient text-based OS installer… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Closing Out 2025 With Several Laptop Additions
A New Year’s Eve pull request is ready with several Intel/AMD laptop improvements for the ongoing Linux 6.19 kernel cycle. An x86 platform drivers pull request sent to Linus Torvalds today brings several notable driver enhancements with expanding the range of supported laptops… ⌘ Read more

Unexpected Surprise: Windows 11 Outperforming Linux On An Intel Arrow Lake H Laptop
Typically when receiving any review hardware preloaded with Microsoft Windows I tend to run some Windows vs. Linux benchmarks just as a sanity test plus it still seems to generate a fair amount of interest even though the outcome is almost always the same: Linux having a hefty performance advantage over Windows especially in the more demanding creator-type workloads. As an unexpected twist and time consuming puzzle the past two … ⌘ Read more

Some Meaningful Performance Benefits For Clang + LTO Built Linux Kernels
Over the past few years building the Linux kernel with Clang has matured a lot thanks to upstream improvements to both LLVM/Clang and the Linux kernel. As it’s been a while since our last comparison for GCC vs. Clang built kernels on the resulting system performance, our latest year-end 2025 benchmarking is providing a fresh look at the Linux 6.19 upstream Git kernel built under the latest stable GCC 15 and LLVM Clang 21 compilers. Plus … ⌘ Read more

Intel’s Xe Linux Driver Ready With Multi-Device SVM To End Out 2025
Intel’s open-source graphics driver engineers are ending out 2025 with a bang. Sent out today was the final drm-xe-next pull request of the year of new feature material ready for the next version of the Linux kernel. Today’s pull adds support for SR-IOV scheduler groups as well as multi-device Shared Virtual Memory (SVM) support… ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net No, that’s Python/curses on Linux. 😅

Linux 6.19 Kernel Benchmarks With X86_NATIVE_CPU Optimization
Added to the Linux kernel earlier this year was the new X86_NATIVE_CPU Kconfig option to enable compiler optimizations for the local/native CPU in use when building the Linux kernel. In effect about ensuring that the “-march=native” compiler flag is set for the kernel build for optimizing the Linux kernel build for your processor being used. Back with Linux 6.16 I ran some benchmarks of the Linux kernel build with X86_NATIVE_CPU to gauge the impac … ⌘ Read more

Ok, the standard library implementation is wonky at best, at least in regards to XDG, because it really doesn’t implement it properly. https://github.com/golang/go/issues/62382 I stick to my own code then. It doesn’t properly support anything else than Linux or Unixes that use XDG, but personally, I don’t care about them anyway. And the cross-platform situation is a giant mess. Unsurprisingly.

It Took 6+ Years For Linux’s “New” Mount API To Be Properly Documented In Man Pages
In demonstrating one of the gaps of man pages in modern times and likely having hindered the adoption of the Linux kernel’s new mount API, it took more than six years for those system calls to be properly documented within man pages. The Linux “new” mount API was introduced back in mid-2019 with Linux 5.2 and since supported by key file-systems after several years but not until weeks ago was this file descriptor based mount API sco … ⌘ Read more

Fedora Continued At The Forefront Of Upstream Linux Innovations In 2025
Phoronix’s Michael Larabel is “reliving some of the best moments for Fedora Linux in 2025” by highlighting the year’s most popular news around the distro. Throughout 2025, Fedora continued to lead upstream Linux innovation with bold changes like Wayland-only GNOME, newer kernels, architecture cleanups, and experimental features – … ⌘ Read more

The Performance Of Arch Linux Powered CachyOS On AMD EPYC Servers
One of the more interesting announcements over the holiday period thus far is that moving into 2026, CachyOS is looking to develop a server edition for their Arch Linux based operating system. CachyOS has garnered quite a following among Linux enthusiasts and gamers for its competitive out-of-the-box performance, employing some of the optimizations by Intel’s now defunct Clear Linux distribution, and pulling in all of the goodness from upstrea … ⌘ Read more

NTFSPLUS Linux Driver Renamed To Just “NTFS” With Latest Code Restructuring
One of the unexpected Linux kernel surprises of 2025 was NTFSPLUS being announced as a new driver for Microsoft’s NTFS file-system with better performance and more features compared to the classic read-only NTFS driver or the “NTFS3” kernel driver that Paragon Software submitted upstream. That NTFSPLUS driver has continued expanding its feature set and robustness and sent out today was the third iteration of the patches. Now this driver is s … ⌘ Read more

Linux’s Cache Aware Scheduling On AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D 3D V-Cache
One of the many interesting Linux kernel innovations I have closely been following this year has been the proposed Cache Aware Scheduling support. I have shown the Cache Aware Scheduling performance on AMD EPYC as well as the Intel Xeon 6 Granite Rapids performance, but what about desktops? In this article is a quick look at Cache Aware Scheduling with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D… ⌘ Read more

Updated Linux Drivers Posted For Legion Go & Legion Go S Configuration
Open-source developer Derek J. Clark continues leading the efforts on improving the Lenovo Legion Go series hardware support under Linux. Posted today was the second iteration of the HID driver work for the Legion Go and Legion Go S for configuration support with the built-in controller HID interfaces… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Expected To Bring IO_uring IOPOLL Polling Improvements
The next Linux kernel cycle, which will be known as Linux 6.20 or more than likely Linux 7.0, is expected to land some IO_uring improvements for better IOPOLL polling… ⌘ Read more

SuperTux 0.7 Reaches Beta For Reviving An Open-Source Classic
Longtime Linux users likely have fond memories of SuperTux as the open-source jump-n-run game that used to be included on some early Linux live CD/DVDs for this Super Mario Bros inspired game. There hasn’t been a new release of SuperTux in over four years but out today is the beta of SuperTux 0.7 as a major overhaul to the free software, family-friendly game title… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19-rc3 Released With A Holiday’s Week Of Fixes
Linus Torvalds just released Linux 6.19-rc3 to ship this week’s fixes. Linux 6.19-rc3 is coming in light as expected due to the Christmas week with many corporate developers getting paid time off and others taking part in year-end festivities… ⌘ Read more