Phoronix

While so many Linux distributions these days are just cosmetic changes and basic package alterations atop the likes of Ubuntu / Debian and Fedora, Chimera Linux that started last year continues to be an interesting project to watch for using the Linux kernel but with the FreeBSD user-space, making use of the LLVM Clang compiler rather than GCC, using musl as its preferred C library, and other differences...

Intel's open-source engineers have already begun preparing Linux kernel patches around 802.11be Extremely High Throughput (EHT) support that will be known as WiFi 7...

One of the developers involved in the initiative of porting the Linux kernel and open-source software to Nintendo's Wii U game console has brought up the possibility of getting the kernel changes mainlined into the Linux kernel. While Linux on the Wii U may sound exciting - especially for those having the aging console otherwise collecting dust - but the Linux support falls short for now and it would be a lengthy process to get the code cleaned up and properly upstreamed...

Yesterday I published an article looking at the unfortunate state of Arch Linux's GNU compiler toolchain that it's fallen behind and users raising concerns over it for months. Following that article the current Arch Linux GNU toolchain package maintainer has provided an update and is calling for at least another package maintainer to get involved...

The "hid-sigmamicro" driver is queued up in HID-next ahead of Linux 5.18 for dealing with keyboards exhibiting problematic behavior that use SiGma Micro keyboard control ICs...

With Linux 5.17 are some nice networking performance optimizations touching different areas while the never-ending optimization work will continue with Linux 5.18...

There has been a multi-year effort to overhaul the Linux kernel's printk() code and as part of that the newest patch series out is providing threaded console printing support...

Fwupd 1.7.5 is out as the latest feature update to this open-source solution for updating system and component firmware under Linux that is easily distributed by the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS)...

Intel Foundry Services already courted SiFive as a customer and there were even those talks last year of Intel reportedly trying to acquire that leading RISC-V chip designer while today Intel has announced it joined RISC-V International as its latest move around this open-source processor ISA...

Last week marked the long awaited release of a 64-bit spin of Raspberry Pi OS. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has now made available a 64-bit build of their default Linux OS build derived from Debian for all recent Raspberry Pi hardware supporting AArch64. For those curious, here are some benchmarks looking at the performance improvement by switching from Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit to 64-bit.

After establishing a new organization within AMD last year focused on improving AMD client platforms on Linux, they are now hiring again for this endeavor...

With the Linux 5.18 kernel coming later this year, the Intel Protected Processor Inventory Number (PPIN) will be more easily exposed for their server processors...

While Arch Linux is known to be at the forefront of rolling-release Linux distributions, when it comes to its compiler toolchain the packages have fallen behind over the past year...

Thanks to Mozilla's Telemetry capabilities, there is some interesting insight to how many Linux desktop users are still relying on an X.Org (X11) Server without Wayland...

While much of the Intel DG2/Alchemist open-source driver support has already been upstreamed into the Linux kernel, Mesa for OpenGL and Vulkan, and related components like IGC and Compute-Runtime, there are various bits still pending ahead of the Intel Arc graphics cards set to make their debut in the next few months. One of those pieces still working their way upstream is enabling the GSC block, the Graphics System Controller...

OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 was released this FOSDEM weekend for this distribution derived from the once great Mandriva Linux, formerly Mandrake...

Linus Torvalds just released Linux 5.17-rc3 as the latest test kernel for Linux 5.17 that should be out as stable before the end of March...

The Linux 5.18 kernel this spring is adding support for the Intel Hardware Feedback Interface (HFI, also talked about sometimes as the Enhanced Hardware Feedback interface - EHFI)...

While the Apple M1 SoC is a great piece of hardware, a large part of what has made Apple Silicon so successful with their newest Macs has been their Rosetta 2 software for dynamically translating x86/x86_64 software to run well on these 64-bit Arm systems. Existing applications and games optimized for prior Intel Macs continue running generally in excellent shape on their newest hardware thanks to Rosetta 2. While there is the ongoing Linux bring-up work for Apple Silicon on Linux, the open-source world doesn't currently have that advantage of a compelling Rosetta 2 alternative but the FEX-Emu project hopes to change that outlook...

While Linux 5.17 is introducing the ASUS WMI EC Sensors driver for greatly expanding Linux's support for hardware sensor coverage on newer ASUS desktop motherboards, already with Linux 5.18 that driver will be deprecated to make way for a new ASUS EC sensor driver replacement...