Phoronix

A set of patches posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list implement per-core Energy Performance Preference (EPP) boosting for recently-busy CPUs. This feature is designed to have a dramatic impact for Linux gaming and helping especially with the 1% low frame-rates improving by 31.8% on the Valve Steam Deck...

Since 2014 there has been a KDE bug report titled Ridiculously slow file copy (multiple small files). With the Dolphin file manager or other KIO-based KDE programs, copying many small files can be much slower than using the cp command directly or other copying programs like rsync, Finally that issue is in the process of being resolved for addressing very slow copy times when dealing with many small files on the KDE Plasma desktop...

In addition to the deprecation and stripping down of AF_ALG, another piece of the Linux kernel crypto code steaming ahead toward removal is the crypto_rng abstraction layer...

ASUS laptops support a feature called "Whisper Mode" that intentionally slows down the fan speed and lowers the CPU clock speed in order to keep the device running cool and quiet. The open-source ASUS Armoury Linux kernel driver is now seeing patches to properly support this Whisper Mode on Linux...

Looking to be added to the Linux kernel source tree for the upcoming Linux 7.3 cycle is test_amd_pmf, a small testing application for exercising the AMD Platform Management Framework (PMF) interfaces and dumping various system data points...

Last October on Phoronix we were first to point out there being some mysterious intrigue around a new x86 implementation from a "corporate entity other than Intel/AMD" with the developer involved not elaborating on the matter. Now that same developer has posted another semi-cryptic message to the Linux kernel mailing list to talk about 16-tile and 32-tile Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX) implementations. To date Intel only has 8-tile AMX...

Fwupd 2.1.7 is out today as the newest update to this open-source firmware updating utility that pairs with the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) for offering a nice firmware upgrade story on Linux systems...

Back in April, Framework Computer announced the Framework Laptop 13 Pro as a ground-up re-design of their modular/upgradeable laptop. This new Framework Laptop 13 Pro features a much larger battery (74Wh), LPCAMM2 memory support, a full CNC aluminum chassis, haptic touchpad, and a new power-optimized touch display. Paired with the very efficient Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" SoCs, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro ends up being an incredible offering from the hardware perspective.

Ubuntu has long provided hardware enablement "HWE" stacks for Ubuntu LTS releases to provide a newer kernel and Mesa drivers and more for better supporting new/modern hardware on the long-term support Ubuntu Linux releases. With Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, Canonical will also now be providing a virtualization HWE stack for shipping newer virtualization / confidential computing features...

Last month I wrote bout new AMD Linux patches introducing a new "low power" CPU core type as an alternative to their standard performance cores and dense efficiency cores. That work now is poised to land with the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel...

The Wayfire modular and extensible Wayland compositor formerly used by default on Raspberry Pi SBCs is nearing its v1.0 release. Wayfire 0.11 was released on Sunday for this Compiz-inspired, wlroots-powered compositor with that being their hopeful last planned version before Wayfire 1.0 releases...

The FreeBSD project published today their Q2-2026 status report that highlights all of their interesting open-source development initiatives for the past quarter. A lot is happening including FreeBSD seeing an AMD ROCm port and also their own NTSYNC driver being created...

NVIDIA and more than two dozen other companies have started the Open Secure AI Alliance for helping to keep open-source AI models secure. The other founding members range from Microsoft to Adobe, IBM, Red Hat, SpaceX, OpenClaw, Palantir, and others...

In working toward releasing the stable Linux 7.2 kernel in less than one month's time, out today is Linux 7.2-rc5 to ship this week's latest bug/regression fixes and help facilitate more testing of this in-development kernel version...

Along with this weekend's release of GNU C Library 2.44, the GNU Binutils 2.47 release is also now available for this important set of binary utilities common to Linux systems and other platforms with the GNU toolchain...

A patch series that appears destined for the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window is what's dubbed the "KVM Chainsaw" as a major code clean-up in dealing with the kvm_mmu "god data structure"...

Besides the FreeBSD graphics and WiFi drivers lagging behind Linux and other operating systems, the FreeBSD audio driver support and handling of audio streams with FreeBSD on the desktop can be problematic depending upon the hardware/system. One of the most active mailing list threads this week in the FreeBSD camp was over the "tragic state" of FreeBSD audio/sound support...

Auto-CPUFreq is one of the open-source projects striving to be a CPU speed and power optimizer for Linux systems to improve battery life without making any real compromises to the user experience. Out today is v3.1 as the newest feature release of Auto-CPUFreq...

Since 2017 in Linux 4.12 has been the Realtek rtl8723bs WiFi driver where it was introduced into the staging area and remains there nearly a decade later. The rtl8723bs driver for this Realtek 802.11n WiFi SDIO driver has seen a lot of code cleaning over the years and all these years later still is needing lots of code clean-ups from unnecessary code abstractions to dealing with malicious WiFi APs for what Greg Kroah-Hartman has called a "beast of a driver". The latest twist is there now being patches for adding Realtek RTL8723BS and RTL8723B onto the existing RTW88 driver...

Firewire still isn't dead yet on Linux. Current plans call for maintaining IEEE-1394 Firewire on Linux at least through 2029 and with today's Linux 7.2-rc5 kernel release is a fix for those wanting to leverage IPv4 networking over Firewire...