Phoronix

There are a few changes worth mentioning out of the VirtIO updates submitted today for the Linux 5.9 kernel...

For Intel NVDIMMs like DC Persistent Memory there is support on the way with Linux 5.9 to support firmware updates to the non-volatile memory device without the need for a system reboot...

The Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) changes have been sent in for the in-development Linux 5.9 kernel...

For those wanting to experiment with an actively-maintained BSD-powered, desktop-focused operating system, GhostBSD remains a great choice powered off FreeBSD...

The Document Foundation that is behind the cross-platform LibreOffice open-source office suite has published their 2019 annual report...

If looking for a text editor that offers more features than the recent release of Nano 5.0, GNU Emacs 27.1 is out...

The FSGSBASE support that was finally mainlined a few days ago for Linux 5.9 is off to providing a nice performance boost for both Intel and AMD systems. Looking at FSGSBASE is one of the first areas I've dived into for Linux 5.9 kernel testing with this article serving as some preview/teaser data points.

The NFS code going into Linux 5.9 is finally presenting support for user extended attributes (user xattrs)...

The open-source Fwupd firmware updating utility paired with LVFS as the Linux Vendor Firmware Service has seen explosive growth for vastly improving the BIOS/firmware updating experience on Linux. Many major hardware vendors distribute their firmware updates on LVFS for consumption by Fwupd and more than 17 million firmware files have been served. Now though there is a new "large hardware vendor" willing to distribute their firmware updates this way but they want a end-user license agreement (EULA) added...

Fedora developers continue embracing the work on making the Btrfs file-system the default for F33 desktop variants. Their latest progress report indicates new installation options being wired up for the Btrfs support...

The HID changes for Linux 5.9 aren't too many but there are a few worth mentioning for improving input device support on Linux...

If you are still rocking a pre-GCN AMD Radeon graphics card on the R600g driver for the HD 2000 through HD 6000 series, you really ought to consider upgrading in 2020, but otherwise at least from the open-source community there continues to be improvements...

The XFS file-system has many improvements ready for the Linux 5.9 kernel...

The PCI subsystem updates have been sent in for the Linux 5.9 kernel. Peer-to-peer DMA support is now solid for all AMD CPUs of the Zen family or newer...

Not much is publicly known about Intel's Emmitsburg chipset. Prior to noticing some Linux patches recently referencing Intel Emmitsburg, the only other public mentions of it has been in the context of the Windows HWiNFO program mentioning it in their change-log. With Linux 5.9, Intel has begun adding Emmitsburg support...

NihAV is a new open-source, multimedia framework being pursued by FFmpeg/Libav developer Kostya Shishkov...

While a lot of interesting changes are coming for the in-development Linux 5.9 kernel, sadly a long overdue change isn't going to make the merge window and that is the AMD Sensor Fusion Hub driver...

With Linux 5.8 there is initial support for booting POWER10 CPUs while with Linux 5.9 there is more POWER10 work underway. Additionally, Linux 5.9 is bringing support for the newer and faster system call ABI for POWER9 and newer with the SCV instruction...

Going back to last year Fedora has been working to enable link-time optimizations by default for their packages. That goal wasn't achieved for Fedora 32 but for Fedora 33 this autumn they still have chances of marking that feature off their TODO list...

The Fujitsu A64FX ARM processor that has 48 cores per node and 32GB of HBM2 memory that currently powers the fastest supercomputer is beginning to see GCC compiler support...