Phoronix

SDL 2.0.16 is being prepared for release as the successor to SDL 2.0.14. Particularly for Linux users this SDL 2.0.16 update is significant with some key enhancements for this library that is common to multi-platform games and part of the Steam runtime...

Lutris 0.5.9-beta1 is out this Sunday as a rather significant update to this open-source Linux game manager. With this new version there are many new features for this centralized game launcher...

At the end of 2019 a rework to the Linux kernel's pipe code saw some of its logic reworked to only wake up readers if needed and avoid a possible thundering herd problem. But it turns out some Android libraries abused the functionality and this has led to broken Android applications when moving to recent kernels. While the user-space software is in the wrong, the kernel is sticking to its policy of not breaking user-space and as such Linus Torvalds has changed the code's behavior for Linux 5.14 and to be back-ported to prior stable kernels...

It's looking like the new NTFS file-system kernel driver developed by Paragon Software and over the past year revised more than two dozen times could be ready for mainlining in the kernel in about one month's time when the Linux 5.15 merge window opens. Everything is finally aligning and looking like the code is in good enough shape for its initial merging though not necessarily replacing the existing NTFS driver at this point...

As a weekend blast from the past, the Linux 5.14 kernel saw some Alpha CPU architecture updates -- including various fixes and the removal of an Alpha-specific binary loader for running a decades dated x86 software emulator...

For those looking to purchase a high-end Linux-friendly web camera for your home office or other environment, there are a few more options now compatible with Linux's fwupd if interested in having the capability of updating the camera firmware under Linux...

The real-time (RT) patches for the Linux kernel still appear a ways off from mainline but at least there is movement on this important patch series for embedded and other use-cases needing real-time support...

While KDE on Wayland has generally enjoyed good HiDPI support, it's now taken until 2021 for KDE's X11 HiDPI support to be in a position of greater usability after evolving over the years...

What started off as Lindows twenty years ago as an easy-to-use Linux-based operating system with great Wine integration and easy application support but then changed to Linspire following a Microsoft lawsuit has had quite a journey. PC/OpenSystems LLC revived Linspire after a multi-year gap following the closure of Xandros and since then it's been a rather peculiar platform. Today they are now shifting focus once again...

Wine developers have popped open a new bi-weekly development snapshot of this software that allows Windows games/applications to run on Linux and macOS along with being what powers Valve's Steam Play (Proton) and CodeWeavers' CrossOver...

Intel's Compute-Runtime stack for providing open-source OpenCL and Level Zero compute for their graphics hardware under Linux is out with a new release...

For those making use of Radeon graphics on Linux with an X.Org-based environment and not using the generic xf86-video-modesetting DDX but rather than the xf86-video-amdgpu driver, AMD today put out a rare update to that diminishing driver component...

AMD driver engineers have submitted their latest batch of AMDGPU feature updates to DRM-Next for queuing ahead of the Linux 5.15 merge window opening up in about one month's time. With this latest pull request the big addition is the new "Cyan Skillfish" GPU support...

VMware has found the Linux 5.13 kernel that was released as stable one month ago has led to a serious performance regression for their ESXi enterprise hypervisor...

Years ago particularly when the open-source Linux GPU drivers were in their infancy it was known in some cases having to fake/spoof the GPU driver name or model in order to workaround artificial bugs / problematic code paths targeted to a particular OpenGL driver or even to achieve greater performance. With a new Mesa merge request called "Unleash the dragon!", this is still very much a problem in 2021 even now in the Android space...

For those wondering what has been going on in the Xubuntu camp for this Xfce desktop spin of Ubuntu, a Xubuntu 21.10 development update was shared concerning package changes and other happenings...

Following last week's release of Chrome 92, Google has now made available the Chrome 93 beta as the next iteration of their cross-platform web browser...

In addition to the AOCC compiler for Zen CPUs, another LLVM/Clang downstream maintained by AMD is the AOMP compiler as where they host their various patches not yet merged around Radeon OpenMP offloading support. This week marked the release of AOMP 13.0-5 as their latest work on that front for the newest OpenMP GPU offloading capabilities...

AMD just lifted the embargo on the Radeon RX 6600 XT, its newest entry in their RDNA2 line-up and optimized for delivering a superior 1080p gaming performance against the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 series. The RX 6600 XT isn't hitting retail availability until August and that is when we'll be able to publish benchmarks, but for now here is an overview of this new graphics card launching at the $379 price point.

Valve just pushed out a rather significant Steam beta update for gamers across Windows, macOS, and Linux...