Fedora Games Lab Looks To Be Revitalized As Modern Linux Gaming Showcase
One of the lesser known Fedora spins under the “Fedora Labs” initiative is the Fedora Games Lab that showcases some open-source games and can serve as an easy demonstrator for Linux gaming. Looking forward to 2026 with Fedora 44, there is a proposal to revitalize Fedora Games Lab to become a better showcase for the modern potential of Linux gaming… ⌘ Read more

Torvalds On Linux Security Modules: “I Already Think We Have Too Many Of Those Pointless Things”
Stemming from a security researcher and his team proposing a new Linux Security Module (LSM) three years ago and it not being accepted to the mainline kernel, he raised issue over the lack of review/action to Linus Torvalds and the mailing lists. In particular, seeking more guidance for how new LSMs should be introduced and raised the possibility of taking the issue to the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board … ⌘ Read more

Fedora 44 Could Work Nicely “Out Of The Box” On Snapdragon-Powered Windows ARM Laptops
Longtime Red Hat engineer Hans de Goede who worked on many Intel/AMD laptop enhancements over the years left Red Hat and ended up joining Qualcomm. Now it turns out one of his projects at Qualcomm is enhancing the Fedora Linux support for running nicely out-of-the-box on Snapdragon-powered Windows on ARM laptops… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Features: LUO, PCIe Link Encryption, ASUS Armoury, DRM Color Pipeline API & More
With Linux 6.19-rc1 released, the merge window for Linux 6.19 has now concluded. Here is a summary of the interesting Linux 6.19 new features and changes with this kernel version. ⌘ Read more

Intel Quietly Discontinues Its Open-Source User-Space Gaudi Driver Code
There’s another setback to the open-source driver code around Intel’s Gaudi accelerator support on Linux… ⌘ Read more

Igalia’s Work Improving Futex For Helping Steam Play Gaming On ARM64 Linux
Besides Valve funding FEX-Emu for x86_64 binaries to run on AArch64 Linux as part of their Steam Play (Proton) efforts in being able to get Windows x86/x64 games running on AArch64 SteamOS for the Snapdragon-powered Steam Frame, there is also work happening in kernel-space to help this emulated gaming experience on AArch64… ⌘ Read more

Kernel Graphics Driver Changes Already Begin Lining Up For Linux 6.20~7.0
Even before the Linux 6.19 merge window wrapped up this weekend with the Linux 6.19-rc1 release, there was already the first pull request to DRM-Next of the first batch of new material to be queued for Linux 6.19’s successor… ⌘ Read more

The Opt-In Proactive & Crash Time Data Collection On Valve’s Steam Deck
Valve’s Steam Deck with SteamOS features built-in crash data collection as well as for logging other system events worth having knowledge about like the split-lock detection and other events. This is all opt-in by users for data collection by Steam, but for those curious about a bit more insight into this Steam Deck data collection, a presentation at this past week’s Linux Plumbers Conference dove into the matter… ⌘ Read more

Early Linux 6.19 Benchmarks On AMD EPYC 9965 2P Excelling For AI & HPC Performance
As the Linux 6.19 merge window winded down this weekend, I began running this development kernel on more systems. While there are some scheduler regressions currently with Linux 6.19 Git, for HPC workloads especially I am seeing some encouraging results using a flagship AMD EPYC 9965 2P server configuration. ⌘ Read more

CentOS Kmods SIG Providing NVIDIA Linux Open GPU Kernel Modules For RHEL/CentOS Users
The CentOS kernel modules “Kmods” special interest group (SIG) is now providing NVIDIA Linux Open GPU Kernel Modules for users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its downstreams as well as for CentOS Stream… ⌘ Read more

FamFS Hopes To Go Upstream In 2026
The FamFS file-system being developed by Micron hopes to go upstream for Linux in “early-ish 2026”… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19-rc1 Released From Japan
The Linux 6.19-rc1 kernel is out to cap off the Linux 6.19 merge window. The kernel release is coming the better part of a day earlier due to Linus Torvalds being in Japan for this past week’s Linux Plumbers Conference and Linux Kernel Maintainer Summit… ⌘ Read more

I’m seeing crashes in the 3D subsystem. (Gallium? Glamor? Whatever other Mesa thing they have? No idea.) In the logs I find this:

malloc(): unaligned tcache chunk detected

And that’s why I still care about Rust and want to learn more about it, even though it’s giving me so much headache and I’ve given up so many times. Because Rust currently seems to be the only popular systems programming language that tries to eliminate these error classes.

And of course “the Rust experiment” in the Linux kernel has recently been concluded as “successful”, so that alone is reason enough for me:

https://lwn.net/Articles/1049831/

System76 Launches First Stable Release of COSMIC Desktop and Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS
This week System76 launched the first stable release of its Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment, reports 9to5Linux.

Announced in 2021, it’s designed for all GNU/Linux distributions — and it shipping with Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS (based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS):

Previous Pop!_OS releases used a version of the COSMIC desktop tha … ⌘ Read more

TrixiePup64 11.2 Released For Debian-Based Puppy Linux With Wayland & X11 Options
For those with fond memories of the original Puppy Linux as a lightweight Linux distribution that used to run well back in the day on systems with less than 1GB of RAM, TrixiePup64 is out with a new release of this Puppy Linux based distribution with Debian GNU/Linux components. The new TrixiePup64 11.2 release is based on the latest Debian Trixie sources while continuing to offer separate builds for either X11 or Wayland usage… ⌘ Read more

Exciting Laptop & Gaming Handheld Device Improvements Merged For Linux 6.19
Merged during this second week of the Linux 6.19 feature merge window were the many x86 platform driver changes. As usual, much of the x86 platform driver activity surrounds bettering Linux hardware laptop support but also a growing number of handheld computers / gaming devices… ⌘ Read more

Oracles Releases Updated “bpftune” For BPF-Based Auto-Tuning Of Linux Systems
The past few years Oracle has been working on bpftune as a solution for BPF-based, automatic tuning of Linux systems. Bpftune has been available via Oracle Linux and GitHub while finally their open-source GitHub code has seen the first new tagged release in a while… ⌘ Read more

Rust in Linux’s Kernel ‘is No Longer Experimental’
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols files this report from Tokyo:

At the invitation-only Linux
Kernel Maintainers Summit here, the top Linux maintainers decided, as Jonathan Corbet, Linux kernel developer, put it, “The consensus among the assembled developers is that Rust
in the kernel is no longer experimental — it is now a core part
of the kernel and is here to stay. So the ‘experim … ⌘ Read more

NFS Lands Initial Support For Directory Delegations In Linux 6.19
The Network File-System (NFS) client changes were merged today for the Linux 6.19 kernel with the most notable feature addition being initial support for basic directory delegations… ⌘ Read more

New RTC Drivers For Apple & NVIDIA With Linux 6.19
The Real Time Clock (RTC) driver changes were merged today for Linux 6.19 ahead of the merge window wrapping up on Sunday… ⌘ Read more

LoongArch32 Support Begins Taking Shape In Linux 6.19, GCC 16
The LoongArch CPU architecture changes have been merged for the Linux 6.19 merge window. This domestic Chinese CPU architecture inspired by MIPS and RISC-V began with 64-bit LoongArch64 but with Linux 6.19 the foundation is being laid for LoongArch32 as a 32-bit variant… ⌘ Read more

New Linux Patch Confirms: Rust Experiment Is Done, Rust Is Here To Stay
Rust for Linux lead developer Miguel Ojeda posted the patch a short time ago to “conclude the Rust experiment”. The “experiment” of Rust programming language code in the Linux kernel is over as it’s now accepted to be a success and “Rust is here to stay” in the kernel… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Lands x2AVIC Patches For AMD SVM Handling Up To 4096 vCPUs
The Kernel-based Virtual Machine “KVM” updates for Linux 6.19 include preparations by AMD for handling up to a possible 4,096 virtual CPUs for VMs… ⌘ Read more

New Patches Lay Out Linux Kernel Adjustments For RISC-V RVA23 Hardware
With the first of RISC-V RVA23-compatible hardware expected to be released in 2026, we are beginning to see more Linux developers prepare for this RVA23 profile and the now-mandated extensions. Sent out this week was an initial “request for comments” patch series on RVA23 adjustments for the Linux kernel… ⌘ Read more

Alright, Advent of Code is over:

https://www.uninformativ.de/blog/postings/2025-12-12/0/POSTING-en.html

It’s been quite the time sink, especially with the DOS games on top, but it was fun. 🥳

In case you’re wondering: All puzzles (except for part 2 of day 10) were doable in Python 1 on SuSE Linux 6.4 and ran in a finite time on the Pentium 133. Puzzle 10/2 might have been doable as well if I had better education. 🤣

Linux 6.19 Improves User-Space I/O “UIO” With Shared Virtual Addressing
Merged a few days ago for the ongoing Linux 6.19 merge window were all of the “char/misc” updates. A lot of random changes throughout this time from the Industrial I/O “IIO” drivers to an interesting new feature for User-Space I/O “UIO” for PCI/PCIe devices… ⌘ Read more

Cache Aware Scheduling Raises Performance For Intel Xeon 6 Granite Rapids
Over the past year Intel engineers have worked a lot on Cache Aware Scheduling for the Linux kernel. The yet-to-be-merged functionality allows for the Linux kernel to better aggregate tasks sharing data to the same last level cache (LLC) domain to reduce cache misses and cache bouncing. The Cache Aware Scheduling development was led by Intel but helps other CPU vendors too for processors with multiple cache domains. Back in October I show … ⌘ Read more

Linux Patches Fix eMMC Secure Erase Of 1GB Taking ~10 Minutes To Now Just 2 Seconds
A new patch series from an NXP engineer optimizes the secure erase performance for certain Kingston eMMC devices. Currently with the Linux kernel performing a secure erase on 1GB of data can take around ten minutes. With these new patches that 1GB secure erase can be done in around two seconds… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu Studio 26.04 May Modernize Its Desktop Layout
Ubuntu Studio is the variant of Ubuntu Linux focused on content creation and audio recording needs, video editing, and other creative workloads. Ubuntu Studio’s desktop hasn’t seen too many changes since Ubuntu 12.04 LTS some 13+ years ago. But Ubuntu Studio developers are now considering desktop layout changes to help modernize its appearance… ⌘ Read more

ReBAR Code Cleaned Up For Linux 6.19 Along With A Few New PCIe Controller Drivers
All of the PCI subsystem updates were merged last week for the nearly-over Linux 6.19 merge window. Standing out this cycle are Resizable BAR improvements as well as introducing a few new PCIe controller drivers… ⌘ Read more

Windows WSL 2.7.0 Released With Newer Linux 6.6 LTS Point Release, Many Fixes
Microsoft today released WSL 2.7.0, the newest version of their Windows Subsystem for Linux code that enables running Linux binaries atop Windows 11 hosts… ⌘ Read more

D7VK 1.0 Released For “Production Ready” Direct3D 7 On Vulkan
The D7VK project recently started as the Direct3D 7 API implemented atop the Vulkan API akin to DXVK and VKD3D-Proton with newer versions of Microsoft Direct3D. Today marks the D7VK 1.0 release for this project in now declaring itself “production ready” for Linux gamers… ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA GTX 980 Through RTX 5080: Open-Source Nouveau/Mesa Drivers vs. NVIDIA 580 Linux Drivers
With the NVIDIA 590 Linux driver series removing GeForce 900 series “Maxwell” and GeForce 10 series “Pascal” as part of punting it off to the latest legacy driver branch, it’s time for a last look at how the mainline NVIDIA Linux driver is performing with these aging graphics cards relative to the current state of the upstream open-source NVIDIA Linux drivers. In this article is a look at how the open-source and upstream … ⌘ Read more

AMD GAIA 0.14 Released With Native Support For Linux & macOS
Early this year AMD announced the open-source GAIA project for “Generative AI Is Awesome” as a showcase of AI support atop their Ryzen AI NPUs and other hardware. That began as a Windows-only project but in September AMD added Linux support to GAIA but only using Vulkan acceleration for AI on Radeon GPUs. Now today GAIA 0.14 is available with “native” support for both macOS and Linux… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Is Back To Working On “Hornet” Security For eBPF Programs On Linux
Earlier in the year Microsoft proposed the “Hornet” Linux security module to provide signature verification capabilities for eBPF programs to provide for better system security. It’s been months since hearing anything more about it and not being merged, but yesterday they “reintroduced” it to the Linux kernel community… ⌘ Read more

DM Changes Merged For Linux 6.19 - Much Better Performance For “Verity” Integrity
Linus Torvalds merged the Device Mapper “DM” changes overnight that include one stand-out change for Linux 6.19… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Networking Delivers 4x Improvement For Heavy Transfer Workloads, New Hardware
The big set of networking subsystem updates was recently merged for the ongoing Linux 6.19 merge window. There are some enticing core networking improvements like a big performance improvement for heavy transfer workloads, Bluetooth PAST enablement, and more. Plus a lot of wired and wireless networking driver activity and new hardware enablement… ⌘ Read more

Intel’s Vulkan Linux Driver Merges Shader VMA Allocator For Ray-Tracing Capture/Replay
Merged today to the Intel open-source “ANV” Vulkan driver in Mesa 26.0 is introducing a shader VMA allocator. Long story short this new allocator steps toward enabling Vulkan ray-tracing capture/replay support, which can come in hand for debugging issues with Vulkan ray-tracing on Intel graphics hardware under Linux and similarly to assist in optimizing for better performance… ⌘ Read more

Glibc Now Enabling 2MB THP On AArch64 By Default For Better Performance
The GNU C Library’s malloc implementation is now enabling 2MB Transparent Huge Pages (THP) by default for AArch64 Linux. This is being done in the name of better performance – a healthy 6.25% performance improvement is noted for SPEC with this change… ⌘ Read more

Qt Toolkit Lands IO_uring Abstraction
The newest feature to land in the cross-platform Qt toolkit is QIORing as an abstraction for Linux’s IO_uring interface. This QIORing may also end up supporting Microsoft’s Windows IORing implementation as well… ⌘ Read more

HDMI Forum Continues To Block HDMI 2.1 For Linux, Valve Says
New submitter emangwiro shares a report: The HDMI Forum, responsible for the HDMI specification, continues to stonewall open source. Valve’s Steam Machine theoretically supports HDMI 2.1, but the mini-PC is software-limited to HDMI 2.0. As a result, more than 60 frames per second at 4K resolution are only possible with limitations. In a statement to Ars T … ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD 15.0 vs. Ubuntu Linux For AMD EPYC Server Performance
Given the recent release of FreeBSD 15, I started off my testing in looking at how FreeBSD 15.0 improves performance versus FreeBSD 14.3. Now it’s onto the next important question: how is FreeBSD 15.0 performing relative to Linux on servers? Here are some benchmarks exploring that topic today. ⌘ Read more

Turbostat Introduces New Cache Statistics, Nova Lake + Wildcat Lake Support
Turbostat is the Linux command-line utility for reporting CPU frequency / power / C-states and related performance / power management items namely for modern AMD and Intel processors. This CLI utility lives within the Linux kernel source tree and for Linux 6.19 has picked up a few new features… ⌘ Read more

Linux Fixes A Performance Regression In The Slab Code
A performance fix has been submitted to the Linux kernel for dealing with a regression in the Slab memory allocation code… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Gets Rid Of The Kernel’s “Genocide” Function
While the Linux kernel has inclusive terminology guidelines for the past five years to replace phrases like master/slave and blacklist/whitelist, there has surprisingly been a “genocide” function within the kernel that was questioned when it was first submitted for inclusion but now removed in Linux 6.19… ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Joins the Linux Foundation’s New Agentic AI Foundation
OpenAI, alongside Anthropic and Block, have launched the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation, describing it as a neutral home for standards as agentic systems move into real production. It may sound well-meaning, but Slashdot reader and NERDS.xyz founder BrianFagioli isn’t buying the narrative. In a report for NERDS.xyz, Fagioli writes: Ins … ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 For RISC-V Brings Parallel CPU Hotplugging, Zalasr Ratified ISA Support
The RISC-V CPU architecture changes have been merged for the in-development Linux 6.19 kernel… ⌘ Read more

AerynOS 2025.12 Brings Many Package Updates
AerynOS 2025.12 is available today as the latest installment of this from-scratch Linux distribution originally known as Serpent OS… ⌘ Read more

Canonical To Distribute AMD ROCm Libraries With Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
AMD previously talked of simplifying the in-box Linux support for ROCm during the second half of 2025. So far we haven’t seen any groundbreaking changes from that initiative besides AMD working on various package archives/repositories to make it easier to install the latest ROCm on different Linux distributions. But today a big announcement is now public that Canonical with next year’s Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release will provide official ROCm packages al … ⌘ Read more

Linux Foundation’s Newest Endeavor: The Agentic AI Foundation
The Linux Foundation today announced it’s formed another foundation under its growing umbrella that extends well beyond the traditional “Linux” landscape: the Agentic AI Foundation… ⌘ Read more