VMware & QXL X.Org Video Drivers See New Updates After Several Years
Red Hat's Peter Hutterer has released new versions of the xf86-video-qxl and xf86-video-vmware DDX drivers for those making use of these X.Org drivers in virtualized environments...
GStreamer 1.22 Released With Improved AV1 Support, Better WebRTC & AMD AMF Additions
GStreamer 1.22 is out today as the first major release of 2023 for this open-source multimedia framework. With GStreamer 1.22 comes some exciting feature additions...
IceWM 3.3.1 Released With Various Fixes For This Lightweight Window Manager
For fans of the IceWM X11 window manager that has been around since the late 90's, IceWM 3.3.1 was released today as the first (minor) release of 2023...
Microsoft Releases WinGet 1.4 For Improving Its Open-Source Package Manager
It's easy to forget that Microsoft maintains a command-line package manager for Windows... The open-source WinGet package manager is approaching three years since its announcement while it continues to not be as rich and robust of what Linux users for many years have enjoyed, but in any case it's continuing to be improved...
Linux 6.3 Features Expected From AMD Auto IBRS To Pluton CRB TPM2 & Dropping Old Code
There still is another month to go until the Linux 6.2 kernel is released as stable and in turn kicking off the Linux 6.3 merge window. But from my monitoring in recent weeks, here is an early preview of some of the material expected for the v6.3 kernel based on what's been queuing in the various subsystem "-next" branches or otherwise looking like it should align for the next cycle...
Running The macOS-Inspired, FreeBSD-Powered helloSystem v0.8 On AMD Zen 4
With this weekend's release of helloSystem 0.8 as a macOS-inspired open-source desktop OS built atop FreeBSD, I decided to try out this new release on an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X desktop to see how it would go.
Arm Cortex-M85 Enablement Makes It Into GCC 13 With PACBTI Support
The Armv8.1-M based Cortex-M85 processor support has made it into the GCC 13 compiler for this highest performing Cortex-M processor use for MCUs and embedded applications...
Fwupd 1.8.10 Released With New Hardware Support, Faster Startup On ChromeOS
Fwupd 1.8.10 is out this morning to kickoff a new week and continuing to enhance the open-source firmware updating support on Linux systems...
Firefox 109 vs. Chrome 109 Browser Benchmarks On Ubuntu Linux + Core i9 13900K
It's been a while since last having a fresh look at the Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome performance on the Linux desktop, but with a slow Linux/open-source news weekend, here are some fresh numbers with their latest browser releases...
Linux Support For Sapphire Rapids' User Interrupts Still Awaiting Mainline
A new feature with Intel 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" that hasn't been talked about too much is the new User Interrupts (UNITR) functionality. The Linux kernel support for it still also hasn't been merged but has shown promising results in patch form...
AMD Zen 4 SMBA & BMEC Features Still Working Their Way To The Linux Kernel
Two quality of service features new with the Zen 4 processors are still seeing their software support squared away ahead of mainlining in the Linux kernel...
Linux 6.2-rc5 Released - The Kernel Will Most Likely Be Extended Through 6.2-rc8
Linus Torvalds just released Linux 6.2-rc5 a day early compared to his usual Sunday ritual as a result of traveling. Due to an uptick in activity this week and the downtime around Christmas / end-of-year holidays, Torvalds is planning on this cycle spanning through Linux 6.2-rc8 before going gold...
helloSystem 0.8 Released As macOS Inspired FreeBSD Desktop OS
Following the demise of PC-BSD/TrueOS, the most compelling BSD-based desktop operating system with a pleasant out-of-the-box user experience is helloSystem. The helloSystem OS has been aiming to be the macOS of the BSDs and for the past few years has been building a macOS-inspired desktop atop FreeBSD. Out today is helloSystem 0.8 as their newest version built atop FreeBSD 13.1...
AMDGPU Linux 6.3 Addition To Help With Optimized Buffer Placement
On Friday AMD sent out another round of feature patches for new kernel graphics driver material they have readied in advance of the Linux 6.3 kernel cycle...
NVIDIA Contributes linux_dmabuf v4 Feedback Support To XWayland
NVIDIA engineer Austin Shafer has contributed linux_dmabuf v4 feedback protocol support for upstream XWayland. This is working towards allowing scan-out modifiers that a compositor advertises to be delivered to X11 applications under (X)Wayland...
IBM Looks To Squeeze Support For Future Power "Dense Math" CPUs Into GCC 13
Back in November IBM engineers sent out compiler patches for "future" CPUs and notably added new dense math instructions. At the time they noted the new target "may or may not be present" in future IBM Power processors but now they are hoping to get these "future" patches squeeze into the GCC 13 compiler...
DualShock 4 Controller Support Being Dropped From HID-Sony In Favor Of New Driver
With the Linux 6.2 kernel Sony DualShock 4 controller support was added to the "hid-playstation" driver as the newer open-source driver maintained by Sony and started out originally in supporting the PlayStation 5 DualSense controllers. The DualShock 4 controller was long supported by the "hid-sony" driver while now in the Linux 6.3 kernel that support will be removed...
More Improvements Come To KDE Plasma Wayland, KF6 Development Enters Next Phase
KDE developers have had a busy start to 2023 with preparing Plasma 5.27 for release as the final feature version in the Plasma 5 series. Work on Plasma 6.0 and KDE Frameworks 6 continues heating up...
OpenZFS 2.1.8 Released With Linux 6.1~6.2 Compatibility Updates, Bug Fixes
While the much anticipated OpenZFS 3.0 hasn't yet materialized as it was originally hoped for in 2022, OpenZFS 2.x continues on maturing nicely with fixes and other updates to this open-source ZFS file-system implementation currently supported on FreeBSD and Linux systems...
Wine 8.0-rc5 Released With Just Nine Bugs Fixed
Work on Wine 8.0 is winding down and it looks like the stable release could be out next week or otherwise very soon...