Amazon/AWS Is Now Sponsoring & Powering All Of GNOME’s Web Infrastructure
On the GNOME Foundation blog today is an interesting post how Amazon Web Services (AWS) has ended up sponsoring and powering all of the GNOME web infrastructure… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.15.2 Fixes “Quite Dramatically…Potentially Dangerous” Idle Power Regression
Along with releasing Linux 6.14.11 today to end-of-life the Linux 6.14 kernel series, Greg Kroah-Hartman released Linux 6.15.2 as the newest stable point release. There is a notable fix here for the CPU idle power regressing on some systems since moving to Linux 6.15… ⌘ Read more

DXVK 2.6.2 Released For Direct3D On Vulkan
DXVK 2.6.2 was released this morning as the newest update to this Direct3D 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 over Vulkan API implementation. DXVK continues to be most notably used by Valve’s Steam Play (Proton) for running countless Windows games well on Linux… ⌘ Read more

AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT Linux GPU Compute Performance
Following last week’s AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT Linux graphics/gaming review for launch day, today’s article is providing an initial look at the GPU compute performance for this new RDNA4-powered ~$349 graphics card on Linux with ROCm 6.4.1. ⌘ Read more

Raspberry Pi RP1 PCI Device Support On Path For Linux 6.17 Upstreaming
Going back to last year there have been patches worked on by SUSE for upstreaming Raspberry Pi’s RP1 PCI device support. It looks like for the Linux 6.17 kernel later this year that work will finally be upstreamed… ⌘ Read more

AMD Linux Patches Aim To Improve S5 Power Consumption
An ongoing area of work for AMD’s Linux client team is on enhancing the power management and overall power savings/efficiency support for Ryzen platforms on Linux. An updated patch series was posted on Monday for making the system S5 power state handling more ideal when powering off the system… ⌘ Read more

IO_uring Shows Promising Potential For Linux Accelerator Drivers
Last year there was some ideas raised around potentially making use of the Linux kernel’s IO_uring functionality for graphics drivers to help with better performance and synchronization. It turns out Qualcomm engineers have recently been exploring IO_uring use for the DRM accelerator drivers with very promising results on their Cloud AI hardware in seeing around 50% speed-ups in ioctl execution time… ⌘ Read more

RADV Radeon Vulkan Driver Merges Support For VP9 Video Decoding
Following the release of Vulkan 1.4.317 back on Friday that brought the long-awaited VK_KHR_video_decode_vp9 extension for VP9 codec support for Vulkan Video, the Mesa RADV driver is now the first prominent open-source Vulkan driver merging support for VP9 decode… ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD Quest Continues For Better Laptop Support With Better WiFi, GPU Drivers & PM
Going on since last year has been an effort to improve FreeBSD laptop support with backing by Dell, AMD, Framework Computer, Netflix, and others. This has focused on better WiFi driver support, enhancing power management, and other improvements for modern laptops. That work has been continuing on all fronts for improving the FreeBSD laptop user experience… ⌘ Read more

AMD Preps Linux Support For User CPUID Faulting
While Intel has supported CPUID Faulting on processors going back to Ivy Bridge and supported this feature in the Linux kernel since early 2017, only now the AMD support is being wired up and making use of the existing Intel code paths… ⌘ Read more

AMD EPYC 4345P 8-Core CPU Performance
Last month with the launch of the AMD EPYC 4005 “Grado” series for entry-level Zen 5 servers we ran benchmarks of the AMD EPYC 4565P and EPYC 4585PX processors as the top-tier 16-core CPUs. They delivered an excellent combination of performance, power efficiency, and most of all value for those looking to assemble an AM5-based budget-oriented server in 2025 and beyond. Those processors destroyed the Intel Xeon 6300 series competition’s flagship, the Xeon 6369P that is simply 8 cores … ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.16 Features From NVIDIA Blackwell To Performance Improvements & Intel APX
Now that the Linux 6.16 kernel merge window closed this weekend, here is a convenient recap of all the interesting features coming in this next kernel release due out as stable around the end of July. ⌘ Read more

Mold 2.40.1 Delivers More Performance - Including A New Algorithm Generated By ChatGPT
While a point release, Mold 2.40.1 is another notable step forward for this high-speed linker alternative to GNU LD/Gold and LLVM LLD. Mold 2.40.1 brings yet more performance improvements… ⌘ Read more

Open-Source Linux Driver Preps For Qualcomm Adreno X1-45 GPU Support
When it comes to the Qualcomm Snapdragon X laptops on Linux it’s been primarily focused on the Snapdragon X Elite support with the X Plus SoC support not being as well off yet. But recently there has been more patches surfacing around the Snapdragon X Plus support, including the Adreno X1-45 GPU used by that lower-tier SoC… ⌘ Read more

Mold 2.40.1 Delivers More Performance - Including A New Algorithm Generated By ChatGPT
While a point release, Mold 2.40.1 is another notable step forward for this high-speed linker alternative to GNU LD/Gold and LLVM LLD. Mold 2.40.1 brings yet more performance improvements… ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA VA-API Driver 0.0.14 Improves Compatibility & Fixes Various Issues
The open-source, unofficial VA-API driver implementation for NVIDIA GPUs is out with a new release. The NVIDIA-VAAPI-Driver project continues to build VA-API support atop NVIDIA’s NVDEC interface to allow the NVIDIA proprietary driver stack to work with VA-API-only applications like the Mozilla Firefox web browser on Linux… ⌘ Read more

Linux’s Turbostat Updated For Intel Diamond Rapids & Bartlett Lake
The turbostat utility that lives within the Linux kernel source tree for reporting processor frequency and idle statistics along with other CPU information saw some last minute updates during the Linux 6.16 merge window… ⌘ Read more

Sway 1.11 Released With New Wayland Protocols & More
Simon Ser announced the release of Sway 1.11 on Sunday as the newest feature update to this popular i3-inspired Wayland compositor from which the wlroots library was originally born… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.16-rc1 Released: New AMD & Intel Drivers, More Performance & Blackwell Support
Linux 6.16-rc1 was just released by Linus Torvalds. This first release candidate of Linux 6.16 marks the close of the two-week merge window where many new features and other changes were introduced… ⌘ Read more

AMD Announces New Ryzen AI Z2 SoCs For Gaming Handhelds
AMD in cooperation with ASUS and Microsoft used the Xbox Games Showcase for announcing their new Ryzen AI Z2 series processors for gaming handhelds. The new Ryzen AI Z2 series is launching with the new ASUS ROG Xbox Ally / ROG Xbox Ally X handhelds running Microsoft Windows… ⌘ Read more

Linux GPIB Drivers Maturing Into Good Shape 50+ Years After The Bus Was Introduced
Notable with the staging area updates for the in-development Linux 6.16 kernel is word that the GPIB driver code may be ready to leave the staging area in the next kernel cycle (Linux v6.17) in then being promoted to the main driver area in signifying the maturity of the code and being cleaned up to meet kernel coding standards. The GPIB drivers are for the General Purpose Interface Bus that was introduced back in 1972… ⌘ Read more

GNOME 49 Alpha 0 Releases Begin As GNOME 49 Preps For X11 Disabled-By-Default
The GNOME 49 Alpha release isn’t expected until the end of June but for facilitating additional testing and a number of prominent changes this cycle, a number of GNOME packages have begun releasing “GNOME 49 Alpha 0” tags as part of plans to issue multiple alpha releases this cycle. Notable for GNOME 49 are plans moving forward for disabling X11 session support by default with that code then likely to be removed entirely with GNOME 50 … ⌘ Read more

GNOME 49 Alpha 0 Releases Begin As GNOME 49 Preps For X11 Disabled-By-Default
The GNOME 49 Alpha release isn’t expected until the end of June but for facilitating additional testing and a number of prominent changes this cycle, a number of GNOME packages have begun releasing “GNOME 49 Alpha 0” tags as part of plans to issue multiple alpha releases this cycle. Notable for GNOME 49 are plans moving forward for disabling X11 session support by default with that code then likely to be removed entirely with GNOME 50 … ⌘ Read more

LoongArch Enables Multi-Core Scheduler Support In Linux 6.16
All of the LoongArch CPU architecture changes have been merged for the Linux 6.16 kernel with the merge window set to wrap up later today… ⌘ Read more

Linux Mint Continues Working On Its libAdwaita Fork, Fingerprint Authentication
The Linux Mint project published its newest monthly status report to outline various interesting development activities around this Linux desktop distribution project building off Ubuntu and Debian bases… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.16 Introduces New Helper For Restricting Symbols To Select Kernel Modules
All of the kernel build system “Kbuild” updates were merged today for the nearly-over Linux 6.16 merge window that is expected to conclude tomorrow with the Linux 6.16-rc1 release. Notable with the Kbuild pull is the introduction of the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL_FOR_MODULES helper… ⌘ Read more

NumPy 2.3 Introduces OpenMP Parallelization Support
NumPy 2.3 is out today as the latest release of this widely-used library for scientific computing. Notable with NumPy 2.3 is finally adding some parallelization support via OpenMP… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.16 Preps For RISC-V’s SBI Firmware Features Extension
The RISC-V architecture feature updates were merged on Friday for the Linux 6.16 merge window that is set to end on Sunday with the Linux 6.16-rc1 release… ⌘ Read more

Mesa 25.1.3 Released As Emergency Update For Radeon RX 9000 Series Linux Users
It was just earlier this week that Mesa 25.1.2 arrived as the newest bi-weekly bug-fix release for these open-source OpenGL and Vulkan drivers. Coming out today is an emergency bug-fix release to fix a regression affecting AMD Radeon RX 9000 series RDNA4 graphics card owners… ⌘ Read more

Vulkan 1.4.317 Introduces VP9 Video Decode, ARM Tensors & 8-bit Floating Point
Vulkan 1.4.317 was made public on Friday with a number of exciting new extensions, including VP9 video decoding for Vulkan Video, 8-bit floating-point data type support, and other additions… ⌘ Read more

GNOME’s Papers App Lands Better Annotations Experience
For those making use of GNOME Papers as the increasingly popular document viewer app for the GNOME desktop, a major rework was merged to enhance the annotations experience… ⌘ Read more

Intel’s Clear Linux Rolls Out Software Packaging Bundle Improvements
Intel’s Clear Linux distribution has made some packaging improvements to help better suit the needs of its users… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.16 Lands Support For EcoNet MIPS Platforms
While there isn’t much new MIPS activity taking place due to other CPU architectures like RISC-V and LoongArch taking the interest away, the MIPS code within the Linux kernel does continue seeing enhancements as well as upstreaming of hardware that has long been relegated to downstream kernels… ⌘ Read more

Initial USB Audio Offloading Code Merged For Linux 6.16
Merged on Friday to the Linux 6.16 kernel by way of the USB/Thunderbolt branch was the massive set of patches (12k+ lines of code) for USB offload support for audio devices… ⌘ Read more

KDE Prepares For Plasma 6.4 Debut Next Week With Better VRR Experience
KDE developers are on the final stretch of fixes and polishing ahead of the Plasma 6.4 release next Thursday. Plus there has been plenty of early work building toward Plasma 6.5… ⌘ Read more

New AMD-SBI Code Merged For Linux 6.16
New AMD code merged today to the mainline Linux 6.16 kernel that’s in-development is the introduction of the AMD-SBI driver/subsystem for primarily benefiting EPYC server platforms. AMD-SBI is for their Side-Band Interface also known as the Advanced Platform Management Link (APML)… ⌘ Read more

Intel Vulkan Driver Lands Improvement For Helping Direct3D Games Under Steam Play
Merged today to Mesa 25.2 is an adjustment for the Intel “ANV” open-source Vulkan driver to help with Direct3D games running under Linux with Valve’s Steam Play via Proton + VKD3D… ⌘ Read more

Intel Linux Driver Patch Posted For Wildcat Lake NPU Accelerator Support
Last month Intel software engineers began posting Linux enablement patches for Wildcat Lake. Some of those first patches were merged for Linux 6.16 while more work is forthcoming. Posted yesterday for the first time on the Linux kernel mailing list was enabling the NPU accelerator support for Wildcat Lake… ⌘ Read more

Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 Elite GCC vs. LLVM Clang Compiler Performance
Since recently picking up a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop for Linux testing now that the Linux support is starting to evolve into better shape (albeit still with many rough corners limiting the daily usability of such devices with Linux), one of the areas I was curious about was looking at the performance of Linux binaries with GCC vs. LLVM Clang. Here are some benchmarks for those wondering how the GCC and Clang compilers are competing on … ⌘ Read more

Box64 v0.3.6 Brings Better AVX Handling, Volatile Metadata For Windows Executables
Just a few days after the FEX 2506 release for that open-source emulator enabling x86_64 binaries to run on ARM64 (AArch64) hosts, Box64 is out with its newest feature update for this open-source project with similar goals… ⌘ Read more

The Performance Gains Brought By Linux 6.15+ & Mesa 25.2 For AMD Strix Halo
While the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Strix Halo SoCs have a nice out-of-the-box experience with modern Linux distributions for the Radeon 8050S and Radeon 8060S graphics, if going for the recently-released Linux 6.15 kernel there are some performance gains to enjoy as well as if opting for the latest Mesa 25.2 development code for the latest RadeonSI OpenGL and RADV Vulkan driver support… ⌘ Read more

AMD’s Kernel Compute Driver “AMDKFD” Can Now Be Enabled On RISC-V
Following all of the Linux kernel graphics driver features merged last week for the Linux 6.16 kernel, sent out this morning were the initial batch of fixes to the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) code. Besides fixes to these graphics / display / accelerator drivers, there is one new feature: the AMDKFD kernel compute driver can now be enabled on RISC-V systems… ⌘ Read more

Apple M2 Pro / Max / Ultra PCIe Support Upstreamed In Linux 6.16
The many PCI subsystem changes have been merged for the in-development Linux 6.16 merge window… ⌘ Read more

More KVM Changes Merged For Linux 6.16: AMD “ALLOWED_SEV_FEATURES” Merged
Following the Intel TDX host support for KVM being merged for the Linux 6.16 merge window, another batch of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) changes were merged for the ongoing Linux 6.16 merge window… ⌘ Read more

Mesa’s Rusticl Lands OpenCL FP16 Half-Float Support
Mesa’s modern Rust-written OpenCL driver for Gallium3D “Rusticl” has closed one of the few remaining gaps with the former Clover OpenCL state tracker. Merged today for Mesa 25.2 is native FP16 support… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.15 & Early Linux 6.16 Delivering Some Additional Gains For AMD Strix Halo
As some extra benchmarks to put out today for the Phoronix.com 21st birthday, there is some additional data points to share on AMD Strix Halo when using Linux 6.15 stable and the early development state of Linux 6.16 Git ahead of its v6.16-rc1 tagging this weekend. The Linux kernel performance is moving in the right direction at least with this round of testing using the HP ZBook Ultra G1a with Ryzen AI Max+ PRO SoC… ⌘ Read more

Proposed Persistent Cache For Block Devices “PCACHE” Ported To DM Framework
An initial patch series sent back out in April proposed PCACHE as a persistent memory cache for block devices. PCACHE was born out of the CXL block device driver and brings some benefits over the likes of BCache and dm-writecache… ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD Developers Deciding What To Do For WiFi With FreeBSD 15: Stable Or Unstable
FreeBSD developers have been working a lot on their wireless/WiFi driver support in recent months as part of their broader initiative for improving their operating system support for laptops. While a lot of progress has been made on seeing more modern WiFi support and recent WiFi chipsets being enabled, it’s still not complete and that puts FreeBSD 15 in a tough position. FreeBSD 15 is set to be released later this year and will like … ⌘ Read more

AMD Ryzen AI Max 390 Performance - 12-Core Strix Halo
For some very fun Linux benchmarking on this 21st anniversary of starting Phoronix is looking at the Ryzen AI Max (PRO) 390 Linux performance, the 12-core Strix Halo SoC with Radeon 8050S Graphics. While there have been various benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ (PRO) 395 in recent weeks on Phoronix and other publications, the other Ryzen AI Max “Strix Halo” SoCs haven’t been as widely seen in the industry yet. The 12-core Ryzen AI Max PRO 390 was tested within … ⌘ Read more

AMD Radeon 8050S “Strix Halo” Linux Graphics Performance
Last month I began the much anticipated AMD Strix Halo Linux benchmarking at Phoronix by testing the top-end Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 that features 16 cores / 32 threads and the very impressive Radeon 8060S integrated graphics. Coming in one step below that flagship Strix Halo SoC is the Ryzen AI Max (PRO) 390 with Radeon 8050S graphics. Coming out today on Phoronix - coincidentally timed for the 21st birthday of Phoronix.com - is the first benchmarks of th … ⌘ Read more