IO_uring Zero-Copy Large Receive Buffer Support To Provide A Nice Performance Win
Slated for introduction in the next kernel cycle (Linux 6.20~7.0) is introducing large receive buffer support for IO_uring’s zero-copy receive code path. This large receive buffer support can be very beneficial for those with higher-end networking hardware capable of handling the larger buffers for some significant performance and efficiency wins… ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA GeForce NOW Is Now Available Natively On Linux In Flatpak Form
Following NVIDIA’s announcement back at CES of their GeForce NOW game streaming service coming to Linux as a native desktop application, today’s the day. The GeForce NOW Linux-native build is being published and the review embargo has lifted. ⌘ Read more

Valve Developer Improves Aging AMD APUs On Linux With VRR, DP/HDMI Audio, HDR & Atomic
Timur Kristóf of Valve’s Linux graphics team last year addressed remaining issues in the open-source AMDGPU kernel graphics driver so old AMD GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.1 GPUs could transition to using AMDGPU by default rather than the former “Radeon” kernel driver that is largely in maintenance mode for pre-GCN/RDNA GPUs. One caveat though was the GCN 1.1 APU support still having some limitations leading to Kaveri and friends no … ⌘ Read more

Intel Thermal Daemon 2.5.11 Released With Wildcat Lake Support
With Intel Panther Lake now shipping, open-source Intel engineers working on the client side are turning to tidying up support for their next target: Wildcat Lake. That more cost effective alternative to Panther Lake now has Intel Thermal Daemon support in getting ready for Linux desktops/laptops… ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA VA-API Driver 0.0.15 Released With A Few Fixes
The NVIDIA-VAAPI-Driver 0.0.15 was released overnight as this VA-API driver implementation built atop NVIDIA’s NVDEC interface used by their proprietary user-space driver stack. The purpose of NVIDIA-VAAPI-Driver as this community open-source project continues to be around enabling video acceleration for NVIDIA GPUs with the Firefox web browser on Linux that supports the VA-API interface but not NVIDIA’s NVDEC… ⌘ Read more

Kernel Community Drafts a Plan For Replacing Linus Torvalds
The Linux kernel community has formalized a continuity plan for the day Linus Torvalds eventually steps aside, defining how the process would work to replace him as the top-level maintainer. ZDNet’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports: The new “plan for a plan,” drafted by longtime kernel contributor Dan Williams, was discussed at the latest Linux Kernel Maint … ⌘ Read more

AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D Linux Performance
Ahead of tomorrow’s official availability of the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D at $499 USD, today the review embargo lifted. This faster variant to the existing Ryzen 7 9800X3D has been undergoing lots of Linux benchmarking the past two weeks for seeing the performance capabilities of this fastest 8-core 3D V-Cache processor. ⌘ Read more

Mesa NVK Driver Temporarily Disabling Support For Larger Pages Due To Bug
Upstreamed to the Nouveau open-source kernel driver in Linux 6.19 was support for larger pages and with that compression support available with the larger page sizes. Subsequently the Mesa NVK open-source Vulkan driver began making use of the larger pages and compressed image support dependent upon the larger page sizes as it should help with performance. But for now it’s being temporarily disabled due to a discovered issue… ⌘ Read more

RFC Patches Posted For Klint Integration With The Linux Kernel: Rust-Based Linting Tool
A request for comments (RFC) patch series was sent out today for providing Klint integration with the Linux kernel. Klint is a new linting tool written in the Rust programming language that helps with static code analysis for errors/bugs as well as code styling inconsistencies… ⌘ Read more

Apple M3 Progress On Linux: Asahi Can Boot To KDE Desktop - But No GPU Acceleration Yet
While the Asahi Linux project has made good progress on bringing Linux to Apple Silicon hardware, much of the success and in turn upstreaming to the Linux kernel has been around the aging M1 and M2 Macs. Apple M3 and newer has been a struggle but progress is being made. One of the Asahi Linux developers shared the ability now to boot to the KDE Plasma desktop with the experimental Asahi Linux code on an M3 MacBook but withou … ⌘ Read more

New Intel Linux Driver Workaround Halves Initial Game Load Time For MHW
In addition to Mesa 26.1 today seeing Vulkan present timing support finally merged to help reduce game stuttering and separately another long-in-development Mesa merge request for DG2 / Meteor Lake to improve performance as much as 260% in some scenarios, there is another merge today to Mesa Git for enhancing Intel graphics on Linux. For Intel Linux gamers the newest Mesa code adds a new DriConf workaround that is capable of halving the initi … ⌘ Read more

GNU C Library Moving From Sourceware To Linux Foundation Hosted CTI
GNU C Library “glibc” developers have decided to move ahead with plans of migrating their core services from Sourcware.org infrastructure over to the Core Toolchain Infrastructure “CTI” project hosted by the Linux Foundation… ⌘ Read more

Systemd Founder Lennart Poettering Announces Amutable Company
Systemd founder and lead developer Lennart Poettering announced the creation of a new company called Amutable. The Amutable company being led by Chris Kühl (CEO), Christian Brauner (CTO) and Lennart Poettering (Chief Engineer) will be focused on delivering determinism and verifiable integrity to Linux systems… ⌘ Read more

ThinkPads On Linux Appear Nearly Ready For Improved Trackpoint Doubletap Handling
Being worked on for a while by Lenovo engineer Vishnu Sankar is nicely handling support for double-tap functionality with TrackPoints on ThinkPads under Linux. The sixth iteration of this enablement work was posted today and is just documentation updates, so it’s looking like this new TrackPoint doubletap code could soon be crossing the threshold for the mainline Linux kernel… ⌘ Read more

Updated Linux Patches For Managing Out-Of-Memory Behavior Via BPF
Being worked on since last year by Google engineer Roman Gushchin was the latest attempt for the Linux kernel to support managing the out-of-memory “OOM” behavior using BPF programs. It’s been a while since there has been anything new to report on that front but published overnight is the latest iteration of those patches… ⌘ Read more

AMD Radeon Linux Driver Introduces Low-Latency Video Decode Option
AMD’s RadeonSI Gallium3D driver for next quarter’s Mesa 26.1 release is introducing a new low-latency video decode mode. This lower-latency video decoding comes with a trade-off of increased GPU power consumption… ⌘ Read more

Valve’s Proton 10.0-4 Released With More Windows Games Now Running On Linux
Valve and CodeWeavers today released Proton 10.0-4 as their newest update to this downstream of Wine that powers Steam Play for running Windows games on Linux… ⌘ Read more

Intel Panther Lake / Arc B390 Linux Benchmarks Still Coming
Ahead of tomorrow’s official availability of new Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” laptops, the review embargo lifted on Panther Lake and its much anticipated Arc B390 graphics. There have been several Windows 11 reviews of Panther Lake out today, but what about Linux?.. ⌘ Read more

Revisiting The Linux 6.19 Performance With “NEXT_BUDDY” Now Disabled
Back at the start of the Linux 6.19 kernel cycle I ran benchmarks showing some scheduler performance regressions with the new kernel. Fortunately, two weeks out from the Linux 6.19 stable release, merged this weekend was disabling the scheduler’s NEXT_BUDDY feature due to performance regressions. Here are some fresh benchmarks looking at the latest Linux 6.19 Git state with/without NEXT_BUDDY and comparing it to Linux 6.18 stable for reference. ⌘ Read more

Patch Proposed To Allow Toggling Linux Kernel VT Support At Boot Time
A patch causing a healthy technical debate today on the Linux kernel mailing list would allow the kernel virtual terminal “VT” support to be enabled/disabled at boot time rather than being limited to the current CONFIG_VT build-time option… ⌘ Read more

Richard Stallman Was Asked: Is Software Piracy Wrong?
Friday 72-year-old Richard Stallman made a two-hour-and-20-minutes appearance at the Georgia Institute of Technology, talking about everything from AI and connected cars to smartphones, age verfication laws, and his favorite Linux distro. But early on, Stallman also told the audience how “I despise DRM…I don’t want any copy of anything with DRM. Whatever it is, I neve … ⌘ Read more

AMDGPU Patches Updated For HDMI Gaming Features On Linux With Radeon Graphics
A patch series posted last week for the open-source AMDGPU kernel driver implements HDMI Variable Rate Refresh “VRR” and other gaming features for HDMI displays. With the HDMI Forum blocking HDMI 2.1 open-source support, these HDMI gaming features for the AMDGPU driver were developed via trial-and-error and the limited public knowledge available. A second iteration of these patches are now available for testing… ⌘ Read more

LG Gram Style 14 Laptop To See Working Speaker Support With Linux 7.0
For the Intel-powered LG Gram Style 14 laptop one of the Linux support caveats is the internal speakers not working properly under Linux, but with a patch expected for the upcoming Linux 6.20~7.0 kernel cycle it will finally fix the laptop speaker support for one of the laptop models in this series… ⌘ Read more

ASRock Rack PAUL PCIe IPMI Card Sees DT Patches For The Mainline Linux Kernel
ASRock Rack’s PAUL is a low-profile PCIe IPMI card built around the widely-used ASPEED AST2500 controller for providing IPMI/BMC capabilities for any platform. New patches provide mainline Linux kernel support for ASRock Rack PAUL with the necessary Device Tree bits… ⌘ Read more

New Patches Aim To Lower Linux Memory Use For Swap, Slightly Improve Performance
Kairui Song of Tencent sent out a new patch series overnight working on enhancing the Linux kernel’s swap code. With the patches there are some memory savings – and more on the way – while also providing for slightly faster performance… ⌘ Read more

New Linux/Android 2-in-1 Tablet ‘Open Slate’ Announced by Brax Technologies
Brax Technologies just announced “a privacy-focused alternative to locked-down tablets” called open_slate that can double as a consumer tablet and a Linux-capable workstation on ARM.

Earlier Brax Technologies built the privacy-focused smartphone BraX3, which co-founder Plamen Todorov says proved “a privacy-focused mobile devi … ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19-rc7 Released With Kernel Continuity Plan, A Few Important Fixes
The Linux 6.19 kernel remains on track for its official release two weeks from today, with the extra RC being baked in due to the end of year holidays. Out today is Linux 6.19-rc7 with a few changes worth highlighting for the week… ⌘ Read more

LACT 0.8.4 Brings Improved Overclocking UI For GPUs On Linux
In the absence of any official GUI control panel from AMD or Intel for their graphics cards on Linux, LACT remains a popular choice particularly for AMD Radeon Linux gamers/enthusiasts to manage various aspects of their GPU from a convenient UI. LACT also supports Intel GPUs and some features on NVIDIA GPUs too. Out today is LACT 0.8.4 for further enhancing this third-party GPU driver user interface… ⌘ Read more

AMD Sends In A Variety Of Graphics Driver Fixes Ahead Of Linux 7.0 Cycle
This week’s batch of AMDGPU and AMDKFD changes queued up ahead of the next kernel merge window is focused on delivering a variety of driver fixes… ⌘ Read more

The Android ‘NexPhone’: Linux on Demand, Dual-Boots Into Windows 11 - and Transforms Into a Workstation
The “NexDock” (from Nex Computer) already turns your phone into a laptop workstation. Purism chose it as the docking station for their Librem 5 phones.

But now Nex is offering its own smartphone “that runs Android 16, launches Debian, and dual-boots into Windows 11,” acco … ⌘ Read more

Linux Kernel Continuity Document Added: What Happens If Torvalds’ Git Repo Goes Away?
Following discussions from the 2025 Linux Maintainer Summit, merged overnight for the Linux 6.19 kernel is documentation concerning the Linux kernel project’s continuity in the event that Linus Torvalds’ official Git repository were to disappear or otherwise be inaccessible for continuing the upstream development of the Linux kernel… ⌘ Read more

Focusrite Forte USB Audio Interface To Be Supported By Linux 7.0
The Focusrite Forte 2-in, 4-out USB audio interface as a portable audio recording solution will be supported by the mainline Linux 7.0 kernel. The patches are queued in the Linux kernel’s sound subsystem development tree. While a convenient little device, the Focusrite Forte is no longer manufactured but can still be found used online… ⌘ Read more

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Display Support & Old Adreno 225 Enablement For Linux 7.0
Rob Clark this week sent out the latest MSM DRM kernel driver updates for the latest Qualcomm display/graphics enhancements ahead of next month’s Linux 7.0 merge window… ⌘ Read more

Former Canonical Developer Advocate Warns Snap Store Isn’t Safe After Slow Responses to Malware Reports
An anonymous reader shared this article from the blog Linuxiac
In a blog post, Alan Pope, a longtime Ubuntu community figure and former Canonical employee who remains an active Snap publisher… [warns of] a persistent campaign of malicious snaps impersonating cryptoc … ⌘ Read more

Wine-Staging 11.1 Adds Patches For Enabling Recent Adobe Photoshop Versions On Linux
Following yesterday’s release of Wine 11.1 for kicking off the new post-11.0 development cycle, Wine-Staging 11.1 is now available for this experimental/testing version of Wine that present is around 254 patches over the upstream Wine state… ⌘ Read more

CachyOS Starts 2026 By Switching To Plasma Login Manager & Live ISO Using Wayland
The Arch Linux powered CachyOS distribution is out with its first new ISO release of 2026. This Linux distribution continues to be quite popular with Linux gamers, enthusiasts craving peak performance, and others for wanting to enjoy a polished Arch Linux desktop experience… ⌘ Read more

DXVK-NVAPI 0.9.1 Released With New Override & Improvements
DXVK-NVAPI 0.9.1 is out today as this NVIDIA NVAPI implementation that is used by Valve’s Steam Play (Proton) with DXVK and VKD3D-Proton. This is the important piece of the Steam Play puzzle to allow for NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, PhysX, and other features for Windows games running on Linux… ⌘ Read more

A Decade In The Making, Time Slice Extension Could Be Merged For Linux 7.0
With the upcoming Linux 6.20~7.0 kernel cycle it looks like the time slice extension work could finally been merged, which has seen various attempts over the past decade. Time slice extension for the Linux kernel implemented using Restartable Sequences “RSEQ” allows user-space processes to request a temporary, opportunistic extension of their CPU time slice without being preempted… ⌘ Read more

AMDGPU Driver Reverts Code For A Number Of Regressions On Linux 6.19
Merged on Friday as part of this week’s DRM kernel graphics driver fixes for the week is addressing a regression affecting many different users with the Linux 6.19 development kernel… ⌘ Read more

ASUS Armoury Driver For Linux 6.19 Picks Up Support For More ASUS Laptops
A new driver in the Linux 6.19 kernel is the ASUS Armoury driver for supporting additional functionality with the ROG Ally gaming handhelds and other ASUS ROG gaming hardware like their laptops. The ASUS Armoury driver builds off the existing ASUS WMI driver but provides some design improvements to make it better than handling it within the existing driver. There is support for adjusting the APU-allocated memory, Intel core count control … ⌘ Read more

Firmware Upstreamed For Audio Support With Upcoming Dell & Lenovo Panther Lake Laptops
Similar to the new Intel IPU 7.5 firmware upstreamed for Panther Lake this week, Cirrus has upstreamed their CS42L45 codec firmware for upcoming Dell and Lenovo laptops making use of this audio codec… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Scheduler Feature Being Disabled Due To Performance Regressions
Queued into tip/tip.git’s “sched/urgent” Git branch today is a patch to disable the kernel scheduler’s NEXT_BUDDY functionality that was re-implemented back during the Linux 6.19 merge window. It turns out to cause some performance regressions that have yet to be otherwise addressed… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Scheduler Feature Being Disabled Due To Performance Regressions
Queued into tip/tip.git’s “sched/urgent” Git branch today is a patch to disable the kernel scheduler’s NEXT_BUDDY functionality that was re-implemented back during the Linux 6.19 merge window. It turns out to cause some performance regressions that have yet to be otherwise addressed… ⌘ Read more

AMD Ryzen AI Software 1.7 Released For Improved Performance On NPUs, New Model Support
AMD today released a new version of Ryzen AI Software, the user-space packages for Microsoft Windows and Linux for making use of the Ryzen AI NPUs for various AI software tasks like Stable Diffusion, ONNX, and more… ⌘ Read more

Linux Lands Fix For Its “Subtly Wrong” Page Fault Handling Code For The Past 5 Years
Merged today for the Linux 6.19 Git kernel and then in turn for back-porting to prior Linux kernel series is making the x86 page fault handling code disable interrupts properly. Since 2020 it turns out the handling was subtly wrong but now corrected by Intel… ⌘ Read more

Linux GPU Driver Loophole Being Fixed For Unprivileged Users Being Able To Tap Unbounded Kernel Memory
An oversight in the Linux kernel’s Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) graphics driver common code could allow unprivileged users to trigger unbounded kernel memory consumption for a potential system-wide out-of-memory “OOM” situation… ⌘ Read more

Intel Xeon 67980E “Sierra Forest” Linux Performance ~14% Faster Since Launch
As part of my end-of-year 2025 benchmarking I looked at how the Intel Xeon 6980P Granite Rapids performance evolved in the year since launch and seeing some nice open-source/Linux optimizations during that time. On the other side of the table were also benchmarks of how AMD EPYC 8004 Sienna evolved in its two years, the AMD EPYC Milan-X in its four years since launch, and also a look at the performance evolution lower down the st … ⌘ Read more

Linux Finally Retiring HIPPI: The First Near-Gigabit Standard For Networking Supercomputers
While the Linux kernel has been seeing preparations from NVIDIA for 1.6 Tb/s networking in preparing for next-generation super-computing, the kernel has still retained support to now for the High Performance Parallel Interface. HIPPI was the standard for connecting supercomputers in the late 1980s and a portion of the 1990s with being the first networking standard for near-Gigabit connectivity at 800 Mb/s over distances up to … ⌘ Read more

AMD Sends Out Linux Patches For Next-Gen EPYC Features: GLBE, GLSBE & PLZA
Sent out to the Linux kernel mailing list this afternoon were a set of 19 patches in preparing for some new CPU features presumably to be found with AMD’s next-generation EPYC “Venice” processors… ⌘ Read more

AMD ROCm 7.2 Now Released With More Radeon Graphics Cards Supported, ROCm Optiq Introduced
Back at CES earlier this month AMD talked up features of the ROCm 7.2 release. ROCm 7.2 though wasn’t actually released then, at least not for Linux. That ROCm 7.2.0 release though was pushed out today as the latest improvement to this open-source AMD GPU compute stack and officially extending the support to more Radeon graphics cards… ⌘ Read more