Linux 7.2-rc2 BPF Code Being Hardened Against JIT Spraying Attacks
Some post-merge-window code changes merged overnight ahead of Linux 7.2-rc2 this weekend is hardening the kernel’s BPF code against JIT spraying attacks… ⌘ Read more

EFS File-System Slated For Removal With Linux 7.3 After 20+ Years Unmaintained
The EFS file-system was used for non-ISO9660 CD-ROMs and disk partitions on SGI IRIX before IRIX 6.0 switched over to XFS. Inside the Linux kernel has been a read-only EFS file-system driver without a maintainer for 20+ years while for Linux 7.3 it’s expected to be removed… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Features: Cache Aware Scheduling, USB4STREAM, AMD ISP4, AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 FRL
Linux 7.2 is working toward release in August with its more than 43 million lines in the codebase. With Linux 7.2 there are many new changes in tow as summed up in today’s feature overview. ⌘ Read more

New Linux Driver Posted To Enable Keyboard Support On M3 MacBooks
While Linux 7.2 introduces the ability to boot on Apple M3 Macs, it’s not yet remotely useful for end-users wanting to use an Apple Mac/MacBook as their daily system. As it stands now, the M3 Macs boot to a simple console and that’s about it with the lack of proper GPU acceleration and functionality like the keyboard on MacBooks not working either. Posted to the kernel mailing list today was the new driver patches for enabling the internal key … ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.7.2 Brings Fix For Most Common KWin Crash, Better Chromium Video Playback
KDE Plasma 6.7.2 is out today as the latest point release to deliver bug fixes for the Plasma 6.7 desktop that debuted earlier this month… ⌘ Read more

Next Bcachefs Release Aims To Include Rust Code In The Kernel Module
The Bcachefs file-system already makes use of the Rust programming language in the user-space tools for this CoW file-system and they have been planning to make use of Rust within the kernel module too. Beginning in the next Bcachefs release, v1.38.7, they are looking at beginning to include Rust code now in their kernel driver… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 On Threadripper Shows Some Nice I/O Improvements & Faster Poll, Some Regressions
I have begun testing out Linux 7.2 on more hardware following the winding down of the merge window and culminating with yesterday’s Linux 7.2-rc1 release. Today’s tests are looking at how Linux 7.2 in its early development state is comparing to Linux 7.1 stable on AMD Ryzen Threadripper. ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2-rc1 Released: “Things Look Reasonably Normal” While Landing AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 FRL, AMD ISP4 & CAS
As expected, Linux 7.2-rc1 was released a brief time ago to cap off the Linux 7.2 merge window. Now it’s off for eight weeks or so of testing before Linux 7.2 stable is released that will in turn go on to power the likes of Fedora 45 and Ubuntu 26.10… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.3 To Introduce DRM “Color Format” Property With AMD GPU Driver Support
While the Linux 7.2 kernel merge window is only ending later today to cap off the feature work on this next version of the Linux kernel, already for the Linux 7.3 kernel cycle later in the year there is one notable feature on the way: the DRM color format property is being introduced and being first supported by the AMDGPU kernel graphics driver… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Surpasses More Than 43 Million Lines In The Kernel Tree
Today marks the last day of the Linux 7.2 merge window with Linux 7.2-rc1 due out later today. With the many new features and improvements merged over the past week since the Linux 7.1 stable debut, the Linux kernel source tree now exceeds 43 million lines… ⌘ Read more

Renewable Energy Just Hit 30% of America’s Electricity Generation
America generated 10.06% more energy with renewables in the first four months of 2026 than it did in the same period the year before. That’s according to new figures from America’s Energy Information Administration, cited in this report from Electrek:

The growth was led by utility-scale solar (+21.3%), hydropower (+15.7%), small-scale solar
… ⌘ Read more

Compromise: Don’t lazy-load the first ~7 images or so, i.e. the ones that are immediately in view.

KDE Plasma 6.7.2 To Fix KWin’s Most Common Crash, Plasma 6.8 To Not Crash When Ejecting CDs
While Plasma 6.7.1 was just released this week following the recent stable debut of Plasma 6.7, there are already a number of fixes piling up for Plasma 6.7.2 due out in July. Plus more feature work and fixes for Plasma 6.8 as the next desktop version going Wayland-only… ⌘ Read more

Interesting, HTTPS is almost twice as slow as plain HTTP on my server (~72 ms vs. ~135 ms):

$ hyperfine -r 50 "curl -so /dev/null 'http://movq.de/blog/postings/2024-05-23/0/t/word11a.jpg.jpg'"
Benchmark 1: curl -so /dev/null 'http://movq.de/blog/postings/2024-05-23/0/t/word11a.jpg.jpg'
  Time (mean ± σ):      72.7 ms ±  17.2 ms    [User: 6.2 ms, System: 4.8 ms]
  Range (min … max):    49.5 ms …  99.7 ms    50 runs

$ hyperfine -r 50 "curl -so /dev/null 'https://movq.de/blog/postings/2024-05-23/0/t/word11a.jpg.jpg'"
Benchmark 1: curl -so /dev/null 'https://movq.de/blog/postings/2024-05-23/0/t/word11a.jpg.jpg'
  Time (mean ± σ):     135.5 ms ±  28.9 ms    [User: 17.8 ms, System: 5.6 ms]
  Range (min … max):    93.2 ms … 198.5 ms    50 runs

More AMD Zen 6 Prepping, Many ASUS / Lenovo / HP Laptop Improvements For Linux 7.2
The many x86 platform driver changes have now been merged for the in-development Linux 7.2 kernel. As usual it’s mostly made up of driver enhancements for benefiting modern AMD Ryzen (AI) and Intel Core (Ultra) laptops… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Fixes Where PCIe Devices Could Be Inadvertently Restricted To 2.5 GT/s
The PCI/PCIe subsystem changes have been merged this week as we approach the end of the Linux 7.2 merge window… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Adds New Driver For Wacom W9000 Pen-Enabled Touchscreens
The input subsystem changes were merged this week for Linux 7.2, which is seeing its merge window wrap up on Sunday. Most notable with the input updates is the introduction of the “wacom_w9000” for supporting newer, pen-enabled touchscreens… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Drops Ancient PROFIBUS Driver: Ported From SCO Unix In 1998, Unused For Years
Linux 7.2 is continuing the trend of removing obsolete hardware drivers for which the code hasn’t seen any maintenance in years and there are no believed users left of said drivers, especially those that would be running modern mainline versions of the Linux kernel. The char/misc changes merged dropped two more obsolete drivers from the Linux source tree… ⌘ Read more

Linux Cache Aware Scheduling Extended For Even Better Performance: Up To 360% In MySQL
Cache Aware Scheduling is one of the most exciting kernel innovations to land in Linux this year. While it was finally merged last week to Linux 7.2, a new patch series today is already working to extend Cache Aware Scheduling and is showing some exciting performance improvements… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Staging Still Working To Tame The Realtek RTL8723BS “Beast Of A Driver”
Way back in 2017 for the Linux 4.12 kernel the Realtek rtl8723bs WiFi driver was added to the kernel’s staging area. Nearly a decade later, it’s still being cleaned-up to suit the more rigorous non-staging area of the kernel in the formal networking subsystem. For Linux 7.2, the staging pull request is once again dominated by clean-ups to this Realtek WiFi driver… ⌘ Read more

KSMBD Adds SMB2 Compression Support In Linux 7.2
Merged back in Linux 5.15 in 2021 was KSMBD as an in-kernel SMB3 file server. There hasn’t been much KSMBD news to report on recently but for Linux 7.2 there is now SMB2 compression support… ⌘ Read more

MGLRU Improvement Yielding Nice Gains On Linux 7.2: MongoDB 30~100% Higher Throughput
The many memory management “MM” related improvements were recently merged to Git for the Linux 7.2 kernel. As typical most kernel cycles, some of the low-level improvements can yield nice efficiency wins and better performance in different areas… ⌘ Read more

NTFS3 Driver Sees Bug Fixes & Minor Improvements With Linux 7.2
While the new NTFS file-system driver merged for Linux 7.1 and has seen more improvements for Linux 7.2, for now at least the NTFS3 kernel driver continues to be maintained with new fixes and improvements. NTFS3 is the driver that was upstreamed to the Linux kernel a few years ago back during the pandemic by Paragon Software… ⌘ Read more

F2FS Integrates FSERROR Reporting, Reduces Memory Footprint In Linux 7.2
The Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) have landed for Linux 7.2… ⌘ Read more

“So Many AI-Fueled Fixes” Means No New ARM64 KVM Features For Linux 7.2
The KVM virtualization-related changes were merged a few days ago for the ongoing Linux 7.2 kernel merge window. While there are a number of features/improvements for AMD and Intel virtualization as well as the likes of s390 and RISC-V, there aren’t any new features on ARM64. The lack of ARM64 feature work this cycle is being attributed to “so many AI-fueled fixes” swamping the ARM Linux developers… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Protects Against Crafted Perf Data From Going Rogue
With the help of Claude Opus 4.6, the Linux 7.2 kernel added protections to fend off specially crafted or corrupted perf data for the perf tool that could cause a number of issues for the running system… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Ready With IMA and EVM Post-Quantum ML-DSA Signature Support
The integrity subsystem changes merged last week for the Linux 7.2 kernel include support now for IMA and EVM post-quantum ML-DSA signature support… ⌘ Read more

“Disgusting” Linux sched_ext Source Code Restructured Following Complaint By Linus Torvalds
Last week the main set of sched_ext changes were merged for Linux 7.2 that included continued work on sub-scheduler support. While Linus Torvalds didn’t object to any of the features being worked on for this extensible scheduler framework that relies on user-space BPF programs, he was frustrated by the layout of the new C source files and remarked, “please don’t do this disgusting thing…proper hierarchical filesyste … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Showing Some Unexpected & Nice Performance Gains On AMD EPYC Sorano
While the Linux 7.2 merge window doesn’t wrap up until this weekend as the feature cut-off for new material, I have already begun some early benchmarks of the code currently staged for this next version of the Linux kernel. Linux 7.2 already was looking quite exciting with cache aware scheduling and other exciting new features while an unexpected surprise in my early testing this week was seeing some local network/socket performan … ⌘ Read more

EROFS With Linux 7.2 Better Handles Large Sparse AI Datasets, More Efficient I/O
The EROFS open-source read-only file-system has some nice enhancements in place for the ⌘ Read more

Linux 8250/16550 UART Serial Driver Seeing Some Modernization Work In 2026
The Linux 8250 serial driver as the universal/legacy driver for 8250 and 16550 type serial ports has been seeing some modernization work recently with a number of 8250 serial patches having now been merged for the Linux 7.2 kernel… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 RISC-V Reduces Kernel Startup Overhead, Eswin SoC Support By Default
Along with the many x86/x86_64 improvements and some ARM64 architecture improvements (albeit slowed down by the AI/LLM noise affecting the development pace), the RISC-V architecture changes were merged last week for the ongoing Linux 7.2 kernel development… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.7.1 Released With Initial Batch Of Bug Fixes
Following last week’s major Plasma 6.7 release, Plasma 6.7.1 is now available today with an initial assortment of bug fixes… ⌘ Read more

USB4STREAM Merged For Linux 7.2 To Quickly Send Data Between USB4 Connected Systems
As part of today’s USB/Thunderbolt subsystem updates for the ongoing Linux 7.2 kernel merge window, USB4STREAM was merged as a nifty and exciting addition to opening up some interesting USB4 connnectivity use-cases for high speed, low latency data transfers… ⌘ Read more

AI Law Firm Wins UK Court Case For First Time
Garfield AI, the UK’s first regulator-approved AI law firm, has won its first court case after helping a freelancer recover 7,000 pounds in unpaid fees. “I was owed money for work I had done, but it felt like the process of recovering it could be too stressful, expensive and time-consuming,” said Tamires Camal Taquidir, a freelancer who had provided HR-related services to a hospitalit … ⌘ Read more

OneXPlayer Configuration Driver Merged For Linux 7.2 Along With Other New Hardware
The HID subsystem updates have landed in the Linux 7.2 kernel with some treats that will excite Linux gamers and other desktop users… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 sched_ext Continues Working Toward Sub-Scheduler Support
Merged last week for the Linux 7.2 kernel were all of the sched_ext changes for this extensible scheduler support that allows loading BPF programs from user-space for handling scheduling tasks. Linux 7.2 continues building out sched_ext’s sub-scheduler support… ⌘ Read more

After Six Years Of Work and Over 360 Patches, Linux 7.2 Finally Removes Bug-Prone strncpy
Tech Times reports:

Linux 7.2’s merge window closed out a cleanup campaign on Friday that most kernel developers had stopped expecting to see end: the complete removal of strncpy(), a C string-copy function that the kernel’s own documentation labels “actively dangerous,” from every subsystem, driv … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Begins Making Preparations For NVIDIA “Blackwell-Next”
When going through the VFIO subsystem patches for the ongoing Linux 7.2 merge window, there isn’t too much to get excited about for end users with these changes. But there is the first time mentioning “Blackwell-Next” enablement by NVIDIA for the Linux kernel… ⌘ Read more

Linux Finally Eliminates The strncpy API After Six Years Of Work, 360+ Patches
Linux 7.2 has finally eliminated the strncpy API from the Linux kernel. The strncpy() function for copying up to a specified number of bytes has long been deprecated and after six years of work and hundreds of patches, no more users of the strncpy within the Linux kernel remained that it has now been eliminated… ⌘ Read more

Linux’s ARM64 NEON Intrinsics CRC64 Code Adapted To Work On 32-bit ARM
Merged for Linux 7.1 was ARMM64 NEON-accelerated CRC64-NVMe support for around 6x the performance out of that checksumming algorithm. The generic code had been a bottleneck in NVMe and other storage subsystem code of the Linux kernel with CRC64-NVMe being used to help verify against data corruption. Now for Linux 7.2, the NEON-accelerated code will also work for those still relying on 32-bit ARM… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.8 Making It Easier To Configure Multi-Monitor Setups
With KDE’s Plasma 6.7 desktop having released this week, more development attention is turning to feature work toward Plasma 6.8 but there are also some fixes already accumulating for the Plasma 6.7.1 point release… ⌘ Read more

New NTFS Driver Sees Hardening & Fixes, Windows Native Symlinks With Linux 7.2
Happening back in Linux 7.1 was the “NTFS resurrection” with landing a new NTFS driver into the Linux kernel that had been years in the making and began as the former NTFS read-only kernel driver many years back before the stint of the Paragon NTFS3 driver in the Linux kernel. For Linux 7.2 that new/modern NTFS driver has seen more hardening work, some fixes, and Windows native symbolic links support… ⌘ Read more

AMD ACP7.D/7.E/7.F Driver Added In Linux 7.2: “Substantial Design Changes” For AMD Audio
It looks like AMD’s next-gen SoCs not only will be exciting on the CPU side with the much anticipated Zen 6 cores but the AMD Audio Co-Processor “ACP” IP looks to be going through some significant updates… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Brings More Work Around WiFi Aware, WiFi 8 / UHR & More Networking Hardware
The networking subsystem changes have been merged for Linux 7.2 with a lot happening around the core networking code as well as the many wired and wireless networking device drivers… ⌘ Read more

Apple M3 Booting On Linux After Three Years Plus Other SoC Updates In Linux 7.2
Just shy of 1,000 new patches were merged on the SoC side for the Linux 7.2 kernel. Among all those patches are enabling five more SoCs to work with the mainline Linux kernel – including the long-awaited Apple M3 support… ⌘ Read more

ARCTIC Fan Controller, More ASUS & ASRock Boards Have Sensor Monitoring With Linux 7.2
For those that enjoy keeping an eye on all their system vitals from temperatures to voltages, the hardware monitoring “HWMON” updates have seen many device additions for Linux 7.2… ⌘ Read more

AMD ISP4 Driver Merged To Linux 7.2 Kernel
The media subsystem changes were merged tonight for the Linux 7.2 merge window and it includes the long-awaited AMD ISP4 driver now in the mainline kernel.. This ISP4 driver is what completes the loop for enabling the web camera on the HP ZBook Ultra G1a and other future high-end AMD Ryzen laptops… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 Gets Rid Of The Last Optimized MD5 Implementation
The Linux kernel has dropped the last of its architecture-specific optimized MD5 hashing algorithm implementations… ⌘ Read more

Bernie Sanders Unveils $7 Trillion Plan To Give Americans Control of AI Industry
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: As artificial intelligence companies reshape the economy and race toward trillion-dollar valuations, Sen. Bernie Sanders is proposing a sweeping transfer of wealth and power from the industry to the American public. The legislation, shown first to The Ass … ⌘ Read more