LLVM Clang 22 Compiler Performance Largely Unchanged Over Clang 21 On AMD Zen 5
With yesterday’s stable release of the LLVM Clang 22 compiler it didn’t take long for Phoronix readers to begin asking about the performance of this half-year feature update to this prominent open-source C/C++ compiler. What I am seeing so far are no big surprises with the performance largely being similar to Clang 21 across various open-source C/C++ workloads in the testing thus far. This initial round of reference benchmark results be … ⌘ Read more

GTK 4.22 In Good Shape With Better SVG Support
Matthias Clasen shared an update today concerning the state of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) within GNOME’s GTK toolkit… ⌘ Read more

LLVM/Clang 22 Compiler Officially Released With Many Improvements
LLVM/Clang 22.1 was released overnight as the first stable release of the LLVM 22 series. This is a nice, feature-packaged half-year update to this prominent open-source compiler stack with many great refinements… ⌘ Read more

F-35 Software Could Be Jailbreaked Like an IPhone: Dutch Defense Minister
Lockheed Martin’s F-35 combat aircraft is a supersonic stealth “strike fighter.” But this week the military news site TWZ reports that the fighter’s “computer brain,” including “its cloud-based components, could be cracked to accept third-party software updates, just like ‘jailbreaking’ a cellphone, according to the Dutch State S … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Makes Preparations For Rust 1.95
Last week was the main feature pull of Rust programming language updates for the Linux 7.0 kernel merge window. Most notable with that pull was Rust officially concluding its “experimental” in now treating Rust for Linux kernel/driver programming as stable and here to stay. Sent out today was a round of Rust fixes for Linux 7.0 that includes preparations for the upcoming Rust 1.95 release… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Lands More AMDGPU Fixes For Old Radeon Hardware
Following last week’s main set of DRM kernel graphics driver feature updates for Linux 7.0, merged on Friday to Linux 7.0 Git was the first round of fixes to these Direct Rendering Manager drivers. Dominating most of the code changes in this latest pull were AMDGPU fixes, including more enhancements for aging Radeon graphics processors… ⌘ Read more

GNOME 50 Lands Updated Wayland Color Management v2 Support
Following GNOME 50’s Mutter merging sdr-native color mode support for wide color gamut displays this week, another late addition to Mutter has now been merged ahead of next month’s GNOME 50 stable release… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Brings Apple Type-C PHY, Snapdragon X2 & Rockchip HDMI 2.1 FRL Additions
Ahead of the Linux 7.0 merge window ending this weekend, the PHY updates were merged this week for this next major kernel release. There are some notable PHY additions particularly for Apple Silicon USB Type-C support as well as additions for Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X2 laptop SoCs… ⌘ Read more

Vulkan 1.4.344 Released With New Extension From Valve
Vulkan 1.4.344 is out today as the latest routine spec update for this high performance graphics and compute API. Besides a handful of fixes and clarifications, Vulkan 1.4.344 brings a new extension courtesy of Valve engineers… ⌘ Read more

Google Announces Gemini 3.1 Pro For ‘Complex Problem-Solving’
Google has introduced Gemini 3.1 Pro, a reasoning-focused upgrade aimed at more complex problem-solving. 9to5Google reports: This .1 increment is a first for Google, with the past two generations seeing .5 as the mid-year model update. (2.5 Pro was first announced in March and saw further updates in May for I/O.) Google says Gemini 3.1 Pro “represents a st … ⌘ Read more

Minecraft Java Is Switching From OpenGL To Vulkan
Minecraft: Java Edition is switching its rendering backend from OpenGL to Vulkan as part of the upcoming Vibrant Visuals update, aiming for both better performance and modern graphics features across platforms like Linux and macOS (via translation layers). GamingOnLinux reports: For modders, they’re suggesting they start making preparations to move away from OpenGL: “Sw … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Speeds Up Reclaiming File-Backed Large Folios By 50~75%
Merged on Wednesday were some additional memory management “MM” updates for the Linux 7.0 merge window. Most interesting out of these latest three dozen patches is support for batched unmapping of file-backed large folios… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Brings Several Enhancements For Modern Laptops
The x86 platform driver updates were merged recently for the ongoing Linux 7.0 merge window. As is a common theme for platform-drivers-x86, a lot of the feature work is around Linux laptop drivers for enhancing the support on modern hardware… ⌘ Read more

Intel Lands Initial Preparations For DSA 3.0 Accelerators In Linux 7.0
Last year we began seeing Linux patches preparing the kernel for Intel Data Streaming Accelerator “DSA” 3.0 IP. Finally with the Linux 7.0 kernel those patches in updated form have now been merged… ⌘ 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

GhostBSD To Use XLibre Server, MATE vs. Gershwin Desktop Decision In Future
GhostBSD lead developer Eric Turgeon published an update regarding X.Org Server vs. XLibre vs. Wayland planning for the GhostBSD distribution moving forward as well as some future uncertainties to this desktop-focused, FreeBSD-derived OS… ⌘ Read more

Valve’s Steam Deck OLED Will Be ‘Intermittently’ Out of Stock Because of the RAM Crisis
Valve has updated the Steam Deck website to say that the Steam Deck OLED may be out of stock “intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages.” From a report: The PC gaming handheld has been out of stock in the US and other parts of the world for a few days, and thanks to this update, we … ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.6 Released With Many Excellent Improvements
KDE Plasma 6.6 is now officially out as the newest feature update to this prominent open-source desktop environment. Plasma 6.6 is self-described by KDE developers as “the best desktop in the known universe (according to us). Plasma 6.6 is all about making your life as easy as possible without sacrificing any of the flexibility.”.. ⌘ Read more

RISC-V In Linux 7.0 Brings User-Space CFI & Optimized strlen Assembly
The RISC-V architecture updates have been merged for Linux 7.0 with a few items to note… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Better Segregates Legacy CardBus Code To Avoid On Modern PCs
The PCI subsystem updates for Linux 7.0 are aplenty as usual and contain a wide assortment of different fixes and code improvements… ⌘ Read more

Vim 9.2 Released
“More than two years after the last major 9.1 release, the Vim project has announced Vim 9.2,” reports the blog Linuxiac:

A big part of this update focuses on improving Vim9 Script as Vim 9.2 adds support for enums, generic functions, and tuple types.

On top of that, you can now use built-in functions as methods, and class handling includes features like protected constructors with _new(). The :defcompile command has also been impro … ⌘ 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

Multi-Lane SPI Support Merged For Linux 7.0
With the Serial Peripheral Interface “SPI” subsystem updates for the Linux 7.0 kernel comes support for multi-lane SPI… ⌘ 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

A Few More ASUS Motherboards Now Support Sensor Reporting With Linux 7.0
All of the hardware monitoring “HWMON” subsystem updates have been merged for the ongoing Linux 7.0 merge window… ⌘ 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

EXT4 In Linux 7.0 Improves Write Performance For Concurrent Direct I/O Writes
Sent out and already merged today for the Linux 7.0 kernel are the EXT4 file-system updates… ⌘ Read more

Media Driver Updates Merged For Linux 7.0 - Still Without The AMD ISP4 Driver
All of the media subsystem driver updates have been merged for the in-development Linux 7.0 kernel and brings some new work around AV1 acceleration as well as other driver updates… ⌘ Read more

Siri’s AI Overhaul Delayed Again
Apple’s long-promised overhaul of Siri has hit fresh problems during internal testing, forcing the company to push several key features out of the iOS 26.4 update that was slated for March and spread them across later releases, Bloomberg is reporting.

The new Siri – first announced at WWDC in June 2024 and originally due by early 2025 – struggles to reliably process queries, takes too long to respond and s … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Graphics Drivers See New AMD Hardware, Intel Xe SR-IOV + Multi-Device SVM
The massive set of Linux kernel graphics/display driver Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) updates were sent out and merged today for the Linux 7.0 kernel. This also includes the growing work around accelerator “accel” drivers for AI NPUs and the like… ⌘ 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

Linux 7.0 Scheduler Updates Land Time Slice Extension, Performance & Scalability Work
Merged today for the Linux 7.0 kernel are some pretty exciting scheduler changes: new features and never-ending work around scheduler performance optimizations and greater scalability with today’s increasingly high core count systems… ⌘ Read more

Google’s Personal Data Removal Tool Now Covers Government IDs
Google on Tuesday expanded its “Results about you” tool to let users request the removal of Search results containing government-issued ID numbers – including driver’s licenses, passports and Social Security numbers – adding to the tool’s existing ability to flag results that surface phone numbers, email addresses, and home addresses.

The update, ann … ⌘ Read more

Intel CPU Microcode 20260210 Brings Security Updates & Functional Fixes
Intel today for Patch Tuesday released several generations worth of CPU microcode updates for addressing multiple security issues and functional issues… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Begins the First-Ever Secure Boot Certificate Swap Across Windows Ecosystem
Microsoft has begun automatically replacing the original Secure Boot security certificates on Windows devices through regular monthly updates, a necessary move given that the 15-year-old certificates first issued in 2011 are set to expire between late June and October 2026.

Secure Boot, which verifies th … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 VFS Changes: Non-Blocking Timestamps, Standardized Generic I/O Error Reporting
In addition to introducing nullfs and the OPEN_TREE_NAMESPACE support for containers, there were also a number of other interesting VFS updates merged on Monday for the Linux 7.0 kernel… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Block Changes Land, Bounce Buffer DIO For Stable Pages
In addition to the BPF filtering support for IO_uring that was merged on Monday, the other block device changes and IO_uring updates were also merged for the newly-opened Linux 7.0 merge window… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Brings Support For “Slow” Workload Hints For Intel Panther Lake
The many power management, thermal, and ACPI updates have been merged for the Linux 7.0 kernel. As usual there are many changes coming from fixes to new hardware support and more expansive thermal control capabilities under Linux… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Brings An EFI Framebuffer Quirk For Valve’s Steam Deck
The EFI subsystem updates have been merged for the in-development Linux 7.0 kernel. Worth mentioning here is a new quirk for helping Valve’s Steam Deck handheld… ⌘ Read more

Btrfs Brings Experimental Remap-Tree Feature & More In Linux 7.0
Among the pull requests merged today on this first day of the Linux 7.0 merge window are the many Btrfs file-system feature updates… ⌘ Read more

Redox OS Gets Cargo & The Rust Compiler Running On This Open-Source OS
The Rust-written Redox OS open-source operating system is now able to leverage Cargo and the Rust compiler “rustc” itself running within this platform. Plus they also made a heck of a lot of other improvements too over the course of the past month. Today they published a status update to outline all of the promising advancements made to this independent OS so far in 2026… ⌘ Read more

Wine-Staging 11.2 Brings More Patches To Help Adobe Photoshop On Linux
Building off Friday’s release of Wine 11.2 is now Wine-Staging 11.2 as this experimental/testing version of Wine with hundreds of extra patches that have yet to be introduced in upstream proper for this open-source software enabling Windows games and applications on Linux. Notable in this bi-weekly update are more patches for continuing to improve the Adobe Photoshop installer support on Linux… ⌘ Read more

GNU Nettle 4.0 Released With SLH-DSA Support
The GNU Nettle cryptographic library is out with a major new update that introduces support for SLH-DSA, the post-quantum signature scheme selected by NIST for the FIPS 205 standard… ⌘ Read more

Intel ISPC 1.30 Released With AMX Support Added To The Standard Library
Intel ISPC 1.30 is now available as the latest feature update to their Implicit SPMD Program Compiler as a variant of the C programming language to easily target their array of CPUs and GPUs… ⌘ Read more

System76’s COSMIC Desktop Planning Vulkan Renderer, Improved Gaming Experience
Following December’s release of COSMIC Epoch 1 along with the Pop!_OS 24.04 release by System76, today they shared more of their feature plans for the next two major COSMIC desktop updates… ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Good point! I’ll update the site a bit more 👌

Google Home Finally Adds Support For Buttons
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Home users, your long nightmare is over. The platform has finally added support for buttons. The release notes for a February 2 update state that several new starter conditions for automations are now available, including “Switch or button pressed.”

Smart buttons are physical, programmable switches that you can press to trigger automations or … ⌘ Read more

Dank Fedora MiracleWM & Other Fedora 44 Changes Approved
The Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee “FESCo” has signed off on the latest batch of Fedora 44 change proposals as they work toward nearing the end of feature work for this spring update to Fedora Linux. Plus some early changes for Fedora 45 have also been granted… ⌘ Read more

Notepad++ Compromised By State Actor
Luthair writes: Notepad++ claims to have been targeted by a state actor, given their previous stance on Uyghurs one can speculate about a candidate. Notepad++, in a blog post: According to the analysis provided by the security experts, the attack involved infrastructure-level compromise that allowed malicious actors to intercept and redirect update traffic destined for notepad-plus-plus.org. The exact tec … ⌘ Read more

GNU Hurd Is “Almost There” With x86_64, SMP & ~75% Of Debian Packages Building
Samuel Thibault offered up a status update on the current state of GNU/Hurd from a presentation in Brussels at FOSDEM 2026. Thibault has previously shared updates on GNU Hurd from the annual FOSDEM event while this year’s was a bit more optimistic thanks to recent driver progress and more software now successfully building for Hurd… ⌘ Read more