Open-source News

Linux Finally Eliminates The strncpy API After Six Years Of Work, 360+ Patches

Phoronix - Sat, 06/20/2026 - 22:22
Linux 7.2 has finally eliminated the strncpy API from the Linux kernel. The strncpy() function for copying up to a specified number of bytes has long been deprecated and after six years of work and hundreds of patches, no more users of the strncpy interface within the Linux kernel remained that it has now been eliminated...

Linux's ARM64 NEON Intrinsics CRC64 Code Adapted To Work On 32-bit ARM

Phoronix - Sat, 06/20/2026 - 19:19
Merged for Linux 7.1 was ARMM64 NEON-accelerated CRC64-NVMe support for around 6x the performance out of that checksumming algorithm. The generic code had been a bottleneck in NVMe and other storage subsystem code of the Linux kernel with CRC64-NVMe being used to help verify against data corruption. Now for Linux 7.2, the NEON-accelerated code will also work for those still relying on 32-bit ARM...

GIMP v0.54 From 1996 With Motif Toolkit Now Flatpak'ed For Modern Linux Desktops

Phoronix - Sat, 06/20/2026 - 18:56
The open-source world waited long enough for the GIMP 3.0 release that finally came last year with its GTK3 port and more, but for those with time on their hands this weekend and want to relive GIMP's past from long ago, GIMP 0.54 has been adapted for Flatpak to work on modern Linux desktops. What makes this version of GIMP from 1996 notable is that it was the last to use the Motif toolkit...

exFAT File-System Enjoys Better Performance On Linux 7.2 With IOmap Conversion

Phoronix - Sat, 06/20/2026 - 18:30
In addition to open-source developer Namjae Jeon serving as maintainer for the new NTFS Linux driver, he also continues serving as maintainer to the exFAT file-system for that other Microsoft file-system popular with removable storage media...

KDE Plasma 6.8 Making It Easier To Configure Multi-Monitor Setups

Phoronix - Sat, 06/20/2026 - 18:15
With KDE's Plasma 6.7 desktop having released this week, more development attention is turning to feature work toward Plasma 6.8 but there are also some fixes already accumulating for the Plasma 6.7.1 point release...

New NTFS Driver Sees Hardening & Fixes, Windows Native Symlinks With Linux 7.2

Phoronix - Sat, 06/20/2026 - 08:34
Happening back in Linux 7.1 was the "NTFS resurrection" with landing a new NTFS driver into the Linux kernel that had been years in the making and began as the former NTFS read-only kernel driver many years back before the stint of the Paragon NTFS3 driver in the Linux kernel. For Linux 7.2 that new/modern NTFS driver has seen more hardening work, some fixes, and Windows native symbolic links support...

Open-Source NVIDIA NVK Vulkan Driver Now Supports DLSS

Phoronix - Sat, 06/20/2026 - 04:26
With the code merged today to Mesa 26.2-devel, the open-source NVIDIA "NVK" Vulkan driver is capable of handling Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) with modern game titles running on Linux / Steam Play...

AMD-Powered Barco MXRT Graphics Cards Finally Seeing Linux Driver Support

Phoronix - Sat, 06/20/2026 - 04:11
Barco, the Europeean technology company that manufactures the AMD GPU based MXRT graphics cards for for multi-display medical imaging systems (and also MXRV for their NVIDIA based graphics cards), have to date only seen Windows drivers published for their professional-grade graphics cards even with using Radeon Pro derived GPUs. But a patch published today to the AMD graphics mailing list is opening the door for Linux support...

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