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
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Advent of Code 2025 starts tomorrow. 🥳🎄
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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
I’ve rebuilt ntfy with the web interface, though it took me an hour or so of JavaScript dependency hell and a certain library whose native interface doesn’t have support for NetBSD
On Linux:Step 1. Clone ntfy repository as usual
Step 2.
export NODE_ENV=productionStep 3.
make web-buildStep 4. Make a tarball with the generated assets and copy it over
Step 5. Repeat the above mentioned first step
Step 6. Unpack the assets into
server/Step 7. Build backend with
make cli-linux-serverStep 8. Done
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
Firefox 147 Beta Released With XDG Base Directory Support
With Firefox 146 released, which is exciting for delivering fractional scaling on Wayland, Firefox 147 Beta is now available and it’s also quite exciting to Linux users for another reason… ⌘ Read more
Scheduler Woes: Bisecting Early Performance Regressions Found In Linux 6.19
Yesterday I noted some early performance regressions I’ve found on the Linux 6.19 kernel compared to Linux 6.18 LTS stable. Those initial benchmarks were on an AMD EPYC server. Since then I’ve seen many of the same workloads regressing similarly on an AMD Ryzen Threadripper workstation between Linux 6.18 and Linux 6.19 Git. Given the significant impact and AMD Threadripper processors always helping out to speed-up Linux kernel build time … ⌘ Read more
Microsoft Has Many Hyper-V Virtualization Improvements For Linux 6.19
For benefiting their Azure cloud and other users of Hyper-V virtualization at large, Microsoft has rolled out a number of feature additions and improvements for their Hyper-V kernel code in Linux 6.19… ⌘ Read more
Bug-Catching “Smatch” Static Analysis On The Linux Kernel Under Threat Due To Funding Gap
For the past 15 years the Smatch static analysis tool has been routinely run for uncovering countless bugs within the Linux kernel. Dan Carpenter who authored Smatch and has been routinely analyzing the Linux kernel with it has authored more than 5,568 patches over the years to become one of the top bug fixers for the kernel. But his funding at Linaro has been cut and the project’s future now in question… ⌘ Read more
Linux 6.19 Enables Per-CPU BIO Caching By Default For Helping Performance
Last week saw the main set of block and IO_uring feature patches for the Linux 6.19 merge window but some additional block subsystem material was merged on Monday. There are various NVMe updates now merged plus enabling per-CPU BIO caching by default to help with file-system performance… ⌘ Read more
F2FS Brings More Performance Optimizations To Linux 6.19
The Flash-Friendly File-System “F2FS” is enjoying more performance optimizations and other improvements for the Linux 6.19 kernel cycle… ⌘ Read more
Firefox 146 Now Available With Native Fractional Scaling On Wayland
Firefox 146 has been released with native fractional scaling support on Wayland – finally giving Linux users crisp UI rendering. Other new additions include GPU process improvements on macOS, developer-focused CSS features, and broader access to Firefox Labs. Phoronix reports: Firefox 146 also now makes Firefox Labs available to all users, … ⌘ Read more
Linux 6.19’s Hung Task & System Lockup Detectors Can Provide Greater Insight
Beginning with the Linux 6.19 kernel, the hung task detector and system lock-up detector are now optionally able to provide greater insight into the issues by dumping additional system information. The new lockup_sys_info and hung_task_sys_info sysctl knobs were merged over as part of the pull requests managed by Andrew Morton… ⌘ Read more
Live Update Orchestrator “LUO” Merged For Linux 6.19
Google engineers for the past number of months have been working on the Live Update Orchestrator as a new way of applying live Linux kernel updates. The Live Update Orchestrator “LUO” builds atop the Kexec Handover “KHO” functionality already within the kernel. Google has since been deplyoing LUO in their production environments for faster security updates to kernels, especially when involving VMs. LUO is now upstream in Linux 6.19… ⌘ Read more
Firefox 146 Now Available With Native Fractional Scaling On Wayland
The Mozilla Firefox 146.0 release binaries are now available with a very exciting improvement for Linux users relying on Wayland… ⌘ Read more
Intel Arc B580 vs. AMD Radeon RX 9000 vs. NVIDIA RTX 50 Series For Llama.cpp Vulkan Performance
Recently there were Phoronix benchmarks looking at the Intel Battlemage GPU compute performance since last year when the Arc B580 graphics card launched as well as the OpenGL and Vulkan graphics performance for the B580 on Linux since launch. There was much progress on the open-source Intel Linux graphics drivers at large this year but especially for Battlemage. Following that a Phoronix Premium reader asked about se … ⌘ Read more
Early Benchmarks Of Linux 6.19 Git Showing Some Concerns
While just half-way through the Linux 6.19 merge window, over the weekend I began running some benchmarks of the current Linux 6.19 Git state compared to Linux 6.18 LTS stable. There are some minor performance improvements to note in a few of the tests on the first system I tested but also some regressions at this very early pre-RC1 state of the Linux 6.19 kernel… ⌘ Read more
AMD Working On Push-Based Load Balancing For Linux To Further Enhance Performance
One of the new Linux engineering initiatives out of AMD is working to further enhance Linux performance on today’s large core count systems by introducing push-based load balancing… ⌘ Read more
Several Logitech Devices Seeing New/Improved Support With Linux 6.19
All of the Human Interface Devices (HID) subsystem updates were merged a few days ago for the ongoing Linux 6.19 kernel merge window. Standing out this cycle on the HID side are seeing new/improved support for several Logitech devices… ⌘ Read more
Linux I3C Gains “HDR” Support For Faster Data Transfers
I2C in Linux 6.19 brought support for Rust-written I2C drivers. The newer I3C “Improved Inter-Integrated Circuit” interface changes have now been merged and the big feature there is HDR support. Not to be confused with the more common High Dynamic Range acronym usage for HDR, HDR in the I3C context is for the “High Data Rate” mode for facilitating faster data transfers… ⌘ Read more
Arm MPAM Driver Upstreamed To The Linux 6.19 Kernel
The ARM64 code changes were merged last week into the in-development Linux 6.19 kernel. The most notable of the ARM64 architecture changes this cycle is landing the Arm MPAM driver for Arm’s Memory System Resource Partitioning and Monitoring… ⌘ Read more
Linux GPIB Drivers Declared Stable - 53 Years After HP Introduced The Bus
Merged to the mainline Linux kernel last year was GPIB drivers in the kernel’s “staging” area. GPIB is the General Purpose Interface Bus launched by HP back in 1972 for lab equipment and more. After a year of cleaning up the code in the kernel’s staging area, for Linux 6.19 the GPIB drivers have been promoted out of the staging area and into the Linux kernel proper. The Linux kernel now has stable driver support for this 8 Mbyte/s parallel … ⌘ Read more
Linux 6.19 Introduces PCIe Link Encryption & Device Authentication, AMD SEV-TIO Enabling
One of the most exciting merges this weekend to the Linux 6.19 kernel is establishing the infrastructure for supporting PCI Express link encryption and device authentication. Multiple vendors are working on PCIe link encryption for their hardware while this initial pull begins laying the foundation of AMD SEV-TIO Trusted I/O support for the mainline kernel… ⌘ Read more
New FreeBSD 15 Retires 32-Bit Ports and Modernizes Builds
FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE arrived this week, notes this report from The Register, which calls it the latest release “of the Unix world’s leading alternative to Linux.”
As well as numerous bug fixes and upgrades to many of its components, the major changes in this version are reductions in the number of platforms the OS supports, and in how it’s built and how its … ⌘ Read more
Homebrew Can Now Help You Install Flatpaks Too
“Homebrew, the package manager for macOS and Linux, just got a handy new feature in the latest v5.0.4 update,” reports How-To Geek.
Brewfile install scripts “are now more like a one-stop shop for installing software, as Flatpaks are now supported alongside Brew packages, Mac App Store Apps, and other packages.”
For those times when you need to install many software packages at on … ⌘ Read more