Open-source News

Linux Patches Enable Intel GPU Firmware Updating From Non-x86 Systems

Phoronix - Thu, 01/08/2026 - 19:25
The modern Intel Xe kernel graphics driver was designed from the start to be more broadly compatible with non-x86 architectures given their discrete graphics processors being front and center, unlike the legacy i915 kernel graphics driver being very x86 minded. While this allows running Intel Arc Graphics on ARM or RISC-V, there are some other kinks still being ironed out with using Intel graphics in the non-x86 world. One of those limitations currently being worked through is the lack of GPU firmware updating on non-x86 systems...

Etnaviv Driver Wires Up PPU Flop Reset Support Needed By Some Vivante Hardware

Phoronix - Thu, 01/08/2026 - 19:14
Sent out today was the latest batch of drm-misc-next changes to DRM-Next for staging ahead of the upcoming Linux 6.20~7.0 kernel cycle. The reverse-engineered Etnaviv DRM driver for Vivante graphics/NPU hardware has added a new "PPU flop reset" feature gleaned off studying the downstream vendor kernel driver...

Linux Kernel Considers Linking The Relocatable x86 Kernel As PIE In 2026

Phoronix - Thu, 01/08/2026 - 18:53
To allow for additional security hardening of the Linux kernel, a patch series has been updated more than one year later to link the relocatable x86_64 kernel as Position Independent Executable (PIE) code...

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