Linux 7.0 Release, Age Verification Laws, Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 & Other April Happenings
A lot happened in the Linux and open-source world during the month of April. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Fedora 44 shipped, a lot of news around age attestation/verification laws, the Linux 7.0 kernel was released, Linux 7.1 is bringing many exciting changes as well as removing of old hardware drivers, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition CPU was released, we began testing the Intel Arc Pro B70 “BMG-G31”, and much more software and hardware co … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.2 To Set Default DRM Scheduler Priority To “Fair”, New AIE4 Hardware In AMDXDNA
Even while the Linux 7.1 merge window was still ongoing this month, the initial “drm-misc-next” pull request to DRM-Next was sent out for beginning to queue new feature material toward the Linux 7.2 kernel coming this summer… ⌘ Read more

New Linux ‘Copy Fail’ Vulnerability Enables Root Access On Major Distros
A newly disclosed Linux kernel flaw dubbed “Copy Fail” can let a local, unprivileged attacker gain root access on major Linux distributions, with researchers claiming the bug affects kernels shipped since 2017. “The POC exploit works out of the box today, but a future version that can escape from containers like Docker is promised soon … ⌘ 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

CachyOS Linux Performance Leading Over Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, Fedora Workstation 44
It’s not too entirely surprising given the aggressive stance that the CachyOS Linux distribution has taken on out-of-the-box performance, but for those curious, it continues largely leading over the newly-released Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Fedora Workstation 44 distributions for the leading performance on modern hardware. ⌘ Read more

AerynOS Updated With Linux 7.0, Gaming Optimized Kernel Flavor
AerynOS, the Linux distribution formerly known as Serpent OS, is out with a new monthly ISO refresh and details on other recent improvements to this original, from-scratch Linux distribution… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1-rc1 Showing Off Some Wins On AMD Ryzen Threadripper
My initial testing of the Linux 7.1 development kernel on various systems in the lab continues going well. Aside from one main regression in a synthetic micro-benchmark appearing on multiple systems, not seeing much in the way of Linux 7.1 performance concerns thus far and seeing some nice performance gains in select workloads… ⌘ Read more

AMD Posts Newest Linux Patches To Accelerate Page Migration For Better Performance
Posted to the Linux kernel mailing list this week was the newest revision of a patch series originally started in early 2025 by a NVIDIA engineer for accelerating page migration. Now being worked on by AMD engineers, this accelerated page migration via batch copies and hardware offloading continues to show promising results… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu’s AI Plans Have Linux Users Looking For a ‘Kill Switch’
Canonical’s plan to add AI features to Ubuntu has sparked pushback from users who are concerned it could follow Windows 11’s AI-heavy direction. “After Canonical’s announcement earlier this week that it’s bringing AI features to Ubuntu, replies included requests for an AI ‘kill switch’ or a way to disable the upcoming features,” reports The Verge. Canoni … ⌘ Read more

The Intel Lunar Lake CPU Performance Gains On Linux Over The Past Year
Recently I ran benchmarks looking at the Xe2 graphics performance gains on Intel Lunar Lake over the past year with what’s shipped by Ubuntu and comparing against our original tests of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition. With those Lunar Lake iGPU benchmarks out of the way, here is a look at how the Lunar Lake CPU performance has evolved on Linux since April 2025. ⌘ 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

Devuan Developer Working On Reviving GTK2 With Modern Fixes
A Devuan developer, the Linux distribution that provides a Debian-based operating system without dependence on systemd, is working on “gtk2-ng” for providing modern fixes and improvements to the old GTK2 toolkit… ⌘ Read more

AMD Introducing New Linux Driver For Their Halo Box: For Its RGB LED Light Bar
AMD CEO Lisa Su back at CES 2026 showed off the Ryzen AI Halo box as a mini PC built around their excellent Strix Halo SoC. The Ryzen AI halo box is to serve as an AI development platform to compete with the likes of NVIDIA’s DGX Spark and Dell GB10. This week is the first time I am seeing new Linux driver activity specifically referencing this exciting AMD “Halo Box” system… ⌘ Read more

IBM Updates Linux Patches For Introducing ARM64 KVM Virtualization On s390
At the start of April was the peculiar announcement of IBM collaborating with Arm on “dual architecture” hardware. The initial fruits of that collaboration at least are Linux kernel patches for enabling ARM64 virtualization acceleration on IBM Z servers. As we approach the end of the month, IBM has now posted a second iteration of those patches for enabling AArch64 software to run on IBM s390 via the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)… ⌘ Read more

AMD’s Lemonade SDK 10.3 Now 10x Smaller By Getting Rid Of Electron
Lemonade as the open-source local AI server backed by AMD and supported across AMD CPUs / GPUs / NPUs on Windows and Linux is out with a big update… ⌘ Read more

Fedora 44 Released For Living On The Leading-Edge Of Linux Innovations
Fedora 44 is officially released for providing the very latest Linux innovations with GNOME 50 being the default desktop of Fedora Workstation 44, an improved KDE experience with Plasma 6.6 complete with the Plasma Log-in Manager, and other up-to-date software packages… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu’s “AI Kill Switch” Is Achieved By Removing Snaps, Initially Opt-In
Following yesterday’s polarizing news of Canonical to begin shipping AI features in Ubuntu Linux over the course of the next year, Jon Seager as the VP of Engineering at Canonical has now provided some clarifications around their AI plans… ⌘ Read more

7-Zip 26.01 Now Allows Making Use Of Huge Pages On Linux For Faster Compression
7-Zip 26.01 was released on Monday and making this release significant are huge pages support on Linux and some users may be interested in the new options around the path generation mode for the output directory when extracting archives… ⌘ Read more

Red Hat’s Stratis Storage 3.9 Released With Online Encryption/Decryption/Reencryption
It’s crazy to realize it has been ten years already since Red Hat abandoned their Btrfs plans for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and dropped it, which was a technology preview feature since RHEL6. In its place Red Hat engineers began developing Stratis for next-gen Linux storage with ZFS/Btrfs-like features but instead building atop XFS, LUKS, Device Mapper, and Clevis. After a while since the last major release, Stratis Storage 3 … ⌘ Read more

Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus Provides Exceptional Value For Linux Users
After looking at the new Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor earlier this month with its nice performance evolution for Arrow Lake on Linux, today we are looking at the other new Intel desktop CPU offering: the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus that retails for just $219 USD. ⌘ Read more

With Linux 7.1 The Mainline Kernel Now Supports Real-Time “RT” On ARM
The Linux 7.1 mainline kernel will allow building a real-time “PREEMPT_RT” kernel for the ARM architecture with no longer needing any out-of-tree patches… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu Linux Will Begin Landing AI Features Throughout The Next Year
Now that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS has shipped, Canonical is opening up on their next major focus for Ubuntu development: lots of AI features… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu Linux Will Begin Landing AI Features Throughout The Next Year
Now that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS has shipped, Canonical is opening up on their next major focus for Ubuntu development: lots of AI features… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1-rc1 Released With New NTFS Driver, FRED By Default & Much More
The Linux 7.1-rc1 kernel was just released for concluding the Linux 7.1 merge window. A lot of new features are in tow for this next kernel version that will then be out as stable in mid-June… ⌘ Read more

Linux Version of Framework’s Laptop 13 Pro is Outselling Its Windows Variant
Framework began shipping its new Laptop 13 Pro this week. And the Ubuntu variant is outselling the Windows variant, reports PC World:

[I]t’s selling quickly by Framework’s internal metrics, with six batches of the Intel version of the laptop already sold out. [A later Framework social media post added “Spoke too soon, w … ⌘ Read more

CachyOS Introduces New Default GUI Package Manager, Kyber For NVMe I/O Scheduler
The April 2026 ISO refresh of the Arch Linux based CachyOS is now available with a variety of refinements, new hardware support, and other polishing… ⌘ Read more

The Linux Kernel Tree About To Hit 40 Million Lines, AMD Driver Above 6 Million Lines
Ahead of the Linux 7.1-rc1 kernel release due out later today for closing the Linux 7.1 merge window, I was curious if all the code removals would lead to a negative change in line count over Linux 7.0. The removals were not enough and Linux 7.1 Git is fast approaching 40 million lines… ⌘ Read more

The New Linux Kernel AI Bot Uncovering Bugs Is A Local LLM On Framework Desktop + AMD Ryzen AI Max
Earlier this month on Phoronix we were the first to draw attention to a new fuzzing tool / AI bot uncovering kernel bugs by Greg Kroah-Hartman, the “second in command” for Linux kernel development and stable maintainer. Greg has now shared more light on the “gregkh_clanker_t1000” for this tool that has been uncovering more Linux kernel bugs the past few weeks… ⌘ Read more

Apple M3 Support On Asahi Linux Is Approaching The Original Alpha Quality Of The M1
A new progress report from the Asahi Linux project is now published that highlights recent upstreaming work for the Linux 7.0 kernel release as well as the latest additions to the downstream Asahi Linux code. The Asahi Linux project also pushed out their first updated Asahi installer in nearly two years… ⌘ Read more

LACT 0.9 Released With UI Updates, Voltage-Frequency Curve Editor For NVIDIA
LACT, one of the leading open-source solutions to provide a graphics card management GUI that works across AMD / NVIDIA / Intel graphics hardware on Linux, is out with a major update this weekend… ⌘ Read more

Open Source Developer Brings Linux to Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME
Microsoft released the “Windows Subsystem for Linux” in 2016, adding an optional Linux environment into every operating system since Windows 10. But now an open source developer has brought Linux to Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me, reports the blog It’s FOSS, “with Linux kernel 6.19 running alongside the Windows 9x ker … ⌘ Read more

Linux Drops ISDN Subsystem and Other Old Network Drivers
“Old code like amateur radio and NFC have long been a burden to core networking developers,” reads the pull request.

And so Thursday Linus Torvald merged the pull request “to rid the Linux kernel of the old Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) subsystem,” reports Phoronix, “and various other old network drivers largely for PCMCIA era network adapters.”
… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Reportedly Looking At Rebasing Azure Linux On Fedora
Microsoft’s in-house Azure Linux operating system used within Azure and for WSL and other purposes is reportedly pursuing an overhaul where it would be derived from Fedora Linux… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 Brings Audio Support For The Line6 POD HD PRO & NexiGo N930W Webcam
Following last week’s Linux 7.1 sound subsystem feature pull that added bus keeper support in working toward better Apple Silicon support along with a variety of other new audio hardware support, a secondary set of sound updates were merged as we approach the end of the Linux 7.1 merge window… ⌘ 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

Farewell ISDN, Ham Radio & Old Network Drivers: Linus Torvalds Merges 138k L.O.C. Removal
Linus Torvalds did it! He merged the pull request to rid the Linux kernel of the old Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) subsystem and various other old network drivers largely for PCMCIA era network adapters. This was the code suggested for removal given the recent influx of AI/LLM-generated bug reports against this dated code that likely has no active upstream users remaining… ⌘ Read more

Fwupd 2.1.2 Brings Support For Firmware Updates On More Hardware
Fwupd 2.1.2 is out today as the latest update to this open-source firmware updating utility that allows for updating system firmware and device/peripheral firmware under Linux… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 Is Performing Well Overall In Early Benchmarks
With the Linux 7.1 merge window winding down ahead of the planned Linux 7.1-rc1 release on Sunday, I have begun testing out the Linux 7.1 Git state on various systems in my lab. So far Linux 7.1 appears to be looking good in the performance department with seeing a number of performance improvements in different areas but also a few possible regressions. ⌘ 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

AMD SBI Driver Preps For EPYC Venice With Linux 7.1
The Linux kernel continues getting ready for AMD’s upcoming Zen 6 processors… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 Removes Drivers For Long Obsolete Input Hardware: Bye Bus Mouse Support
Beyond Linux looking to remove old drivers due to the surge of AI/LLM bug reports, the Linux 7.1 kernel is also removing some old hardware drivers simply on the basis of long obsolete hardware. The input subsystem saw several drivers removed this week for decades old hardware… ⌘ Read more

Pull Request For Linux To Remove Old Network Drivers, ISDN Subsystem Due To AI/LLM Noise
It was just days ago we reported on a proposal to drop old network drivers due to AI-driven bug reports becoming a burden on upstream kernel developers. Last night that culminated with an initial pull request to clear out some old, unused networking drivers plus also clearing out the entire ISDN subsystem and more… ⌘ Read more

HDMI FRL Support Achieved With Open-Source Nouveau For NVIDIA GPUs
While the AMDGPU open-source driver has struggled with HDMI 2.1 support due to the HDMI Forum blocking open-source implementations, HDMI Fixed Rate Link (FRL) as a feature of the HDMI 2.1 specification is enjoying success now with the open-source Nouveau graphics driver on Linux for NVIDIA GPUs… ⌘ Read more

Opera GX Browser Gets Flatpak’ed & Snap’ed On Linux
Last month Opera released the Opera GX gaming-focused web browser for Linux. It rolled out in RPM and Debian package format support while now for those interested is also available via Flatpak and Snap sandboxed app formats… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 Removes Some Obsolete PCMCIA Drivers That Likely Haven’t Been Used In Years
In addition to some network drivers on the chopping block due to AI bug reports for obsolete hardware/drivers and Linux 7.1 dropping various drivers for Russia’s Baikal CPUs, the Linux 7.1 kernel as of today also dropped some obsolete PCMCIA host controller drivers… ⌘ Read more

Godot 4.7 Will Finally Have HDR Output, Including On Linux With Wayland
The upcoming Godor 4.7 open-source, cross-platform game engine release is rolling out support for high dynamic range (HDR)… ⌘ Read more

Many USB Improvements & New Hardware Merged For Linux 7.1
Ready to go ahead of the Linux 7.1 merge window closing at week’s end are numerous new USB device support additions and other USB subsystem enhancements… ⌘ 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

KMSCON Continues Improving For VT Terminal Emulator In User-Space
KMSCON 9.3.4 is out today for this virtual terminal (VT) emulator in user-space that runs atop the Linux DRM/KMS APIs for those wanting to enjoy a CONFIG_VT=n Linux kernel experience… ⌘ Read more

Many Great Networking Improvements Arrive In Linux 7.1
Merged recently to Linux Git were the big set of networking changes for the Linux 7.1 kernel… ⌘ Read more