[$] BPF support in GCC 16 and beyond
José Marchesi and the GCC-BPF developers opened the BPF track at the 2026
Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory-management, and BPF Summit
with a 90-minute summary of what has changed for GCC’s BPF support in the past year.
This kind of session has become something of a tradition. There were similar
updates in
2025 and
2024. This time around, GCC seems to be closing in on
feature p … ⌘ Read more

[$] Support for private memory nodes
Gregory Price started his session in the memory-management track of the
2026 Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit by saying that, in
current kernels, if a NUMA node has memory, the assumption is that anybody can
make use of it. He is trying to implement the opposite policy — to make
some memory off-limits for all processes except those designed specifically
to use it. The session was used to present his goals and to discuss h … ⌘ Read more

[$] In search of faster this_cpu operations
The kernel’s this_cpu\
operations are meant to speed access to per-CPU variables. They are
more optimal on some CPUs than others, though. During a
memory-management-track session at the 2026 Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Yang Shi proposed a
fundamental, and somewhat controversial, change to how these operations
work in order to provide better performance on … ⌘ Read more

[$] What’s brewing in CXL
Compute\
Express Link (CXL) is a technology intended to enable the provision of
“memory nodes” in data centers that provide (possibly shared) memory to
nearby CPUs. It has, Dan Williams said at the beginning of his
memory-management-track session on the topic at the 2026 Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, “been making
memory-management problems worse since 2021”. He used the sessi … ⌘ Read more

[$] Improving the per-CPU memory allocator
There are many places in the kernel where performance can be improved by
using per-CPU data. But, as it turns out, the kernel’s allocator for
per-CPU data has some performance problems of its own. Harry Yoo led a
session in the memory-management track of the 2026 Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit to explore ways to
address those problems and accelerate the allocation and initialization of
per-CPU data. ⌘ Read more

Airlines consolidate flights into NZ but passengers keep coming
Airlines are trimming capacity, rather than slashing it, in the wake of the fuel crisis, but the industry as a whole is largely in “wait and see” mode, a tourism industry audience has heard.

At a pre-event for the major tourism conference Trenz 2026, Auckland International Airport chief executive Carr … ⌘ Read more

[$] Swap tables, flash-friendly swap, swap_ops, and more
The kernel’s swap subsystem is charged with managing anonymous pages in
secondary storage when those pages are (hopefully) not being used and the
memory they occupy is needed elsewhere. This long-unloved subsystem has
seen a resurgence of developer interest in recent times, so it is not
surprising that it was the topic of three separate sessions in the
memory-management track at the
2026 [Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit](https://events.linuxfoundat … ⌘ Read more

[$] Controlling memory-management with BPF
Roman Gushchin began his session in the memory-management track of the
2026 Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit by saying that the
community has seen a lot of proposals adding BPF-based interfaces for
memory management. None of them have made their way into the mainline,
though. He wanted to explore the ways in which BPF might be helpful and
the obstacles that have kept BPF-based solutions out so far. This session
was … ⌘ Read more

[$] HugeTLB preservation over live update
Recent times have seen a lot of effort put into the implementation of the kexec handover and live update orchestrator
features in the Linux kernel. But that work is not yet complete. At the
2026 Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Pratyush Yadav led a
memory-management-track session on adding the ability to preserve [hugetlbfs](https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/mm/hugetlbpage.html … ⌘ Read more

[$] Policy groups for memory management
The kernel’s control-group\
subsystem works well for resource management, Chris Li said at the
beginning of his memory-management-track session at the 2026 Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. Control groups work
less well for other use cases, though. He was there to present his
proposed enhancement, called “policy groups”, that would address some of
the shortcomings t … ⌘ Read more

[$] Buffered atomic writes, writethrough, and more
In back-to-back sessions at the start of the 2026 Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit (which spilled over into
a third slot), the atomic-buffered-writes\
feature was discussed. In the first session, Pankaj Raghav and Andres
Freund set the stage with an introduction to the problem, along with a use
case for its solution: the PostgreSQL database system. In the second, Ojaswin … ⌘ Read more

@bender@twtxt.net Apologies, I’m still working through some layout issues with TwtStrm and frequently miss mentions…

Magic: the Gathering does not use a Game Master (although professional referees are often used in sanctioned events). While the game has alot of thematic crossover with with D&D (or fantasy games in general), the system is much more of an abstract, card-dueling system involving things like “the stack” and insanely specific rules on card timing and interactions.

Like, we joke about “I’m sending my army of (goblins / elves / angels / whatever) at you,” but that’s about as far into the “role-playing” element most magic games get in my experience (and most of the “official” competitive games I’ve played at my FLGS were even more abstract and less thematic, although it’s been years since I played in one of those).

[$] Managing pages outside of the direct map
When Brendan Jackman proposed
a session for the 2026 Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, his topic was “a
pagetable library for the kernel”. During the actual
memory-management-track session, though, he stated that the idea had
“fizzled” and he was going to cover related topics instead. What
resulted was a session on ways to efficiently mana … ⌘ Read more

MAHA Keeps Being Weird as Hell About Fertility
RFK Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz’s comments about teen sperm count and “underbabied” Americans at a recent women’s health event underscore the White House’s pronatalist agenda. ⌘ Read more

[$] Using dma-bufs for read and write operations
The kernel’s dma-buf\
subsystem provides a way for drivers to share memory buffers, usually
in order to support efficient device-to-device I/O. At the 2026 Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Pavel Begunkov, assisted
by Kanchan Joshi, led a joint session of the storage and memory-management
tracks to explore ways to make the use of dma-bufs more efficient yet, a … ⌘ Read more

[$] Providing 64KB base pages with 4KB kernels, two different ways
Some CPU architectures are able to run with a number of different base-page
sizes; using a larger size can often result in better performance at the
cost of increased memory use. Other architectures are more limited. At
the 2026 Linux\
Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, two sessions in
the memory-management track explored options for letting processes run with
64KB page sizes when the underlying kern … ⌘ Read more

[$] A 2026 DAMON update
The kernel’s DAMON subsystem
provides user-space monitoring and management of system memory. DAMON is
developing rapidly, so an update on its progress has become a regular
feature of the annual Linux Storage,\
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. This tradition
continued at the 2026 gathering with an update from DAMON creator SeongJae
Park covering a long list of new capabilities — tiering, data attribute … ⌘ Read more

Groupon Promo Codes: 60% Off in May 2026
Unlock up to 60% off, 40% off packages, and 20% off with top Groupon coupon codes. Explore coupons to save extra on travel getaways, holiday gifts, spa days, and event tickets. ⌘ Read more

Claude Managed Agents Can Engage In a ‘Dreaming’ Process To Preserve Memories
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: At its Code with Claude developers’ conference, Anthropic has introduced what it calls “dreaming” to Claude Managed Agents. Dreaming, in this case, is a process of going over recent events and identifying specific things that are worth storing in “memory” to inform future t … ⌘ Read more

Many people started to become distrustful of big tech in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. I began feeling pessimistic back in 2016, when AlphaGo beat master Go player Lee Sedol four games to one. Something about that event has soured me on the future of technology ever since.

Marvel, DC, Game Publishers Launch Rival Events Saturday for Free Giveaways
The once-a-year free comic book giveaway “is splitting in two,” according to a local news report.

Launched in 2002 by Diamond Comic Distributor, comic book giants like Marvel and DC have historically participated together. But things changed after Diamond Comic Distributors went bankrupt in 2025, “leaving other companies to s … ⌘ Read more

The Chinese Government Just Got the World’s Largest Digital Rights Conference Canceled
Access Now, the group that organizes RightsCon, says Zambian officials asked it to exclude Taiwanese participants if it wanted the event to proceed as planned. ⌘ Read more

US Senators Ban Themselves From Prediction Markets Trading
The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a rule banning senators from trading on prediction markets effective immediately. CNBC reports: The move came amid rising concern about insider trading on prediction market platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, and about event contracts that can involve death or violence. On April 22, Kalshi said it had suspended and fine … ⌘ Read more

All FOSDEM 2026 videos are online
FOSDEM’s organizers have announced
that all of the video recordings “worth publishing” from FOSDEM 2026 are now available.

Videos are linked from the individual schedule pages for the talks and
the full\
> schedule page. They are also available, organised by room, at
video.fosdem.org/2026.

LWN’s [coverage](https://lwn.net/Arc … ⌘ Read more

Is AI Cannibalizing Human Intelligence? A Neuroscientist’s Way to Stop It
The AI industry is largely failing to ask a key design question, argues theoretical neuroscientist/cognitive scientist Vivienne Ming. Are their AI products building human capacity or consuming it?

In the Wall Street Journal Ming shares her experiment about which group performed best at predicting real-world events (compared to fo … ⌘ Read more

California Engineer Identified in Suspected Shooting at White House Correspondents Dinner
The 31-year-old engineer and self-described indie game developer is suspected of firing shots at the annual event attended by President Donald Trump, high-profile media figures, and US government officials. ⌘ Read more

China’s CATL Reveals 621-Mile EV Battery, Under-7-Minute Charging
CATL unveiled a new wave of EV battery tech, “including a lighter battery pack rated for a 1,000-km (621-mile) driving range and an upgraded fast-charging battery that can go from 10 percent to 98 percent in under seven minutes,” reports Interesting Engineering. From the report: The launches were made during a 90-minute event in Beijing ahead … ⌘ Read more

Framework Computer Announces The Framework Laptop 13 Pro
At Framework Computer’s next-gen hardware launch event today they announced the Framework Laptop 13 Pro as a ground-up redesign of their 13-inch modular laptop… ⌘ Read more

Framework Previews The OCuLink Dev Kit
In addition to announcing the Framework Laptop 13 Pro today, Framework Computer at their next-gen hardware event also previewed the OCuLink Dev Kit for attaching high throughput peripherals like external GPUs (eGPUs) to Framework Laptops… ⌘ Read more

JFS Sees Data Integrity Hardening With Linux 7.1
It’s pretty rare nowadays seeing any real changes to the JFS file-system on Linux when there are multiple far superior solutions available. But in any event, the JFS file-system driver has seen a few fixes in Linux 7.1… ⌘ Read more

Gazing Into Sam Altman’s Orb Could Solve Ticket Scalping
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Sam Altman’s iris-scanning, humanity-verifying World project announced at an event in San Francisco on Friday that Tinder users around the globe can now put a digital badge on their profiles signaling to potential suitors that they’re a real human, provided they’ve already stared into one of World’s glossy white Orbs … ⌘ Read more

@kiwu@twtxt.net I returned home from an on-site week at work. Commute was an adventure every day. It started off with a canceled train on Monday morning. Luckily, some very good mates granted my asylum. But even with shorter rides, I faced delays due to fuckwits on the tracks, then the train was terminated early due to the large delay, so we had to change trains. On the bright side, they then sent an entirely empty one, but I don’t get why they just didn’t continue with the first one instead. Due to another delayed train I didn’t catch my connection and the next one was canceled, so I had to wait for the following one. Super great fun. I’m very exhausted now and am very glad that I had already filed in flex time for tomorrow before the on-site event was scheduled.

Meeting my workmates in person was actually nice. It’s okay to do that once a quarter, I don’t need to do that more often. We should have had more meetings, though, trying to work in the office was expectedly incredibly inefficient. We certainly would have had more topics to actually discuss and think about. And most of them would have really benefited from nearly everybody being in the same room. Anyway.

Today, I even met my workmates from past projects in the office, too. So, the socializing was great.

KDE Gear 26.04 released
Version 26.04 of
the KDE Gear collection of applications has been released. Notable changes
include improvements in the Merkuro\
Calendar schedule view and event editor, support for threads in the NeoChat Matrix chat client, as well as
the ability to add keyboard shortcuts in the Dolphin file manager “to nearly any
option in any menu, plugin or extension”. See the [c … ⌘ Read more

Intel LASS In Good Shape For Linux 7.1
In addition to Linux 7.1 supporting FRED by default for Flexible Return and Event Delivery, another Intel CPU feature now in good shape for this next kernel version is Linear Address Space Separation (LASS)… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 Is A Big Win For Intel Panther Lake With FRED Now Enabled By Default
Last month I ran benchmarks showing the very positive performance impact FRED has on Intel’s new Panther Lake processors while wondering why Flexible Return and Event Deliver wasn’t enabled by default yet on Linux. Hours after that story was published, an Intel engineer posted the patch to enable FRED by default with the rationale they were waiting for hardware to be publicly released in order to evaluate the performance benefit. D … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Released With New Hardware Support, Optimizations & Self-Healing XFS
As expected the stable Linux 7.0 kernel was just released today in marking this next kernel release. The Linux 7.0 milestone comes due to Linus Torvalds’ preference of bumping the major version number after hitting X.19 as opposed to any single major change, but in any event there are a lot of great improvements and changes to find with this new kernel version. Linux 7.0 is also what’s powering the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release… ⌘ Read more

New Jersey Cannot Regulate Kalshi’s Prediction Market, US Appeals Court Rules
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that New Jersey gaming regulators cannot prevent Kalshi from allowing people in the state to use its prediction market to place financial bets on the outcome of sporting events.
A three-judge panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Ci … ⌘ Read more

Libinput Hit By Worrying Security Issues With Its Lua Plug-In System
Libinput devised a Lua-based plug-in system for modifying devices/events. The Lua plug-in support was introduced last year with libinput 1.30 but unfortunately some security issues have now come to light with the implementation… ⌘ Read more

Intel FRED Appears Ready To Enable By Default With Linux 7.1
Last week I ran benchmarks quantify the performance benefit to Intel FRED for Flexible Return and Event Delivery initially found with the new Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” processors and also for upcoming Nova Lake and Diamond Rapids CPUs. The FRED performance impact was very beneficial across a variety of workloads but rather strangely was not enabled by default. Mere hours after publishing that article, an Intel engineer posted a patch to en … ⌘ Read more

Brazil’s UFO Capital Marks 30 Years Since ‘Alien Encounter’
Thirty years after the alleged 1996 “ET of Varginha” encounter, debate continues to rage over the events that happened in Brazil’s self-styled UFO capital. An anonymous reader quotes an excerpt from the Guardian: The skies over this far-flung coffee-growing hub went charcoal black, the heavens opened and one of Brazil’s greatest mysteries was born. “ … ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA Talks Up “Expanding The Open-Source Horizon” Around AI & Kubernetes
KubeCon Europe is running this week in Amsterdam and NVIDIA used the event to talk up their open-source work around AI and newest open-source contributions… ⌘ Read more

Bipartisan Bill Seeks To Ban Sports Betting On Prediction Market Platforms
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA) and John Curtis (R-UT) introduced (PDF) a bill on Monday that could prevent prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket from allowing users to wager money on sports events or play casino-style games. This bipartisan bill would not apply to Fa … ⌘ Read more

Patch Posted To Enable Intel FRED By Default On Linux
Following today’s article exploring the performance benefits of Intel Flexible Return and Event Delivery “FRED” with Panther Lake and also pointing out the rather obscure nature of FRED being disabled-by-default, an Intel Linux kernel engineer posted a patch to now enable FRED by default for better performance… ⌘ Read more

Intel FRED Can Yield Great Performance - FRED Benchmarks On Panther Lake
With Intel’s new Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” laptop SoCs, the Xe3-based Arc B390 graphics and much improved CPU performance capture much of the spotlight. One new capability with Panther Lake that isn’t featured as much though is the new FRED capability with Flexible Return and Event Delivery. Today’s Intel Panther Lake testing is looking at the very interesting performance impact of FRED on Linux. ⌘ Read more

Live Nation Avoids Ticketmaster Breakup By ‘Open Sourcing’ Their Ticketing Model
Live Nation reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice that avoids breaking up its dominant live events empire with Ticketmaster. Instead, the deal requires changes like “open sourcing” their ticketing model and divesting some venues. NBC News reports: The company and the Justice Department reached a set … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Adds A New Minor Performance Optimization Shown With AMD Zen 2 CPUs
The Linux event poll “epoll” code for efficient I/O multiplexing and monitoring of file descriptors for seeing when I/O is possible has a new optimization merged today for Linux 7.0… ⌘ Read more

Rubin Observatory Has Started Paging Astronomers 800,000 Times a Night
On February 24th, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory activated its automated alert system, sending out roughly 800,000 real-time notifications flagging asteroids, supernovae, flaring black holes and “other transient celestial events,” reports Scientific American. And this is only the beginning – that number is projected to climb into th … ⌘ Read more

AMD Zen 6 Performance Events & Metrics Merged For Linux 7.0
Ahead of the Linux 7.0 merge window closing later today with the Linux 7.0-rc1 release, the performance “perf” subsystem tooling changes were merged on Saturday. Among the notable changes here are the performance events and metrics handling for upcoming AMD Zen 6 processors… ⌘ Read more

Viral moment as AI leaders refuse to hold hands at India event
Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, chief executive officers of rivals OpenAI and Anthropic, were involved in a very awkward photo op. ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Performance Events Prep For Intel Xeon Diamond Rapids
The performance “perf” events changes for the Linux 7.0 kernel are continuing to prepare for next-generation Xeon Diamond Rapids processors as the successor to current Xeon 6 Granite Rapids… ⌘ Read more