Linux Hardware Reviews & Performance Benchmarks, Open-Source News

For those looking to manage the RGB lighting and other features of their Razer devices on Linux, Polychromatic 0.9.8 is now available for that UI front-end that interacts with the OpenRazer kernel drivers for providing a decent albeit unofficial Linux configuration experience.

Making its debut this Saturday rather than the usual bi-weekly Friday release regiment, Wine 11.15 is out today as the newest development release for this open-source software enabling Windows games and applications to run on Linux.

Germany's Sovereign Tech Agency announced earlier this year a new fellowship program and now as part of that, for the next two years GNOME has a fellow dedicated to working on design and community management.

It's been another busy week in the Linux kernel camp with increased patch activity continuing due to AI/LLM coding agents / bots continuing to uncover different defects in the open-source codebase. The hardware monitoring (HWMON) subsystem saw many fixes this week for issues mostly raised by the Sashiko AI bot with the issues being described as mostly critical or high severity bugs.

Thanks in part to the power of Claude Opus 5 and Claude Fable 5, a new Windows DirectX 11 driver for QEMU has been created to help improve graphics acceleration for Microsoft Windows guests running under QEMU virtual machines.

The input subsystem fixes for the week include a number of AI-driven patches to address various information leaks, out-of-bounds accesses, validation fixes, and other coding issues that have turned up recently. Plus some device quirks and also adding support for a rather funky gaming controller to the common XPad Linux driver used by many different gaming controllers.

7 August 09:01 PM EDT - KDE - KDE Plasma 6.8

It's been another busy summertime week of KDE developers working toward a great Plasma 6.8 desktop release in October.

7 August 03:28 PM EDT - Hardware - Logitech HID++ 2.0 Reprogrammable Button

For those with newer, high-end Logitech input devices, coming with Linux 7.3 is support for the re-programmable button support of the HID++ 2.0 protocol.

Upstreamed for the Linux 7.2 kernel was the Device Tree (DT) support for booting the mainline Linux kernel on the base Apple M3 SoC. Though it's not yet useful for end-users with many features remaining to be supported and upstreamed. Now for the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel, the M3 Pro, Max, and Ultra variants will also have initial support for booting on the mainline kernel.

7 August 12:57 PM EDT - Intel - Intel QATlib 26.08

Intel today released an updated version of their QuickAssist Technology library (QATlib) as the user-space component for making use of QuickAssist accelerators under Linux.

This week a final batch of DRM-Misc-Next feature material was submitted for DRM-Next to queue ahead of the Linux 7.3 merge window opening later in the month. Most notable is the TTM memory management code is now being more agressive when allocating below protection limits. This is an improvement coming thanks to Valve's open-source Linux graphics team.

7 August 10:00 AM EDT - Intel - Intel + HDMI 2.1 On Linux

Following AMD making progress with HDMI Fixed Rate Link (FRL) and other HDMI 2.1 functionality for their open-source Linux kernel graphics driver, Intel is out today with a big set of 44 patches working on HDMI 2.1 FRL support for their kernel graphics driver with Meteor Lake hardware and newer.

The release candidate of PoCL 7.2 is now available for testing of this Portable Computing Language implementation of OpenCL that allows for CPU-based execution or via alternative LLVM back-ends allows for OpenCL on Level Zero, NVIDIA GPUs, and even remote devices/hardware.

A new driver coming for the Linux 7.3 kernel is HID-HyperX. It's not some new driver to support fancy hardware and some nifty features but rather mundane in nature due to the poor behavior of a high-end HyperX USB gaming microphone.

The latest high profile open-source project to commit to an AI coding policy is NetworkManager, the widely-used software for Linux network configuration.

The newest ROCm component for AMD's open-source GPU compute stack is Spur as an AI-native, Rust-written job scheduler for scaling up GPU workloads to multi-thousand GPU clusters.

The Linux kernel Git activity continues being quite heavy this week on fixes. It's looking like the Linux 7.2-rc7 kernel release on Sunday will be another big one with the changes continuing to flow in from both developers and AI bots.

7 August 06:08 AM EDT - Radeon - AMD HDMI VRR + ALLM

Complementing the HDMI 2.1 Fixed Rate Link (FRL) support that AMD already upstreamed to the Linux kernel, AMD engineers have been further ironing out their HDMI 2.1 implementation for the open-source AMDGPU Linux kernel driver. The latest quest has been getting HDMI 2.1 variable rate refresh (VRR) support upstreamed along with HDMI Auto Low-Latency Mode (ALLM).

7 August 05:58 AM EDT - Vulkan - VK_EXT_cooperative_matrix_maintenance1

Vulkan 1.4.359 released today and this one week update to the Vulkan API specification brings a new extension for enhancing the cooperative matrix capabilities.

Following the GCC 16.1 compiler release from the end of April as the first stable version of GCC 16, GCC 16.2 is now available with dozens of bug fixes collected since then for further stabilizing this year's GNU compiler feature release.

6 August 08:44 PM EDT - Radeon - AMDGPU For Linux 7.3

AMD today submitted their last planned feature updates ahead of the Linux 7.3 merge window opening later this month.

Made public earlier today is Zapscape as a guest-to-host escape vulnerability affecting the Linux KVM x86 code for the past six years. This 2020 kernel change to KVM x86 can also be used as a local privilege escalation (LPE) exploit too where /dev/kvm is world-writable on some Linux distributions like RHEL.

Back during the Linux 7.2 merge window the Btrfs file-system dropped its COW fixup mechanism, which was used to detect dirty pages without an ordered extent. This code was removed as it was believed the kernel's memory management layer had solved the underlying conditions but in reality it ended up leading to silent data loss. That Btrfs fixup worker infrastructure is now restored in time for Linux 7.2-rc7 this weekend and the stable v7.2 kernel later this month.

While the Linux WiFi/wireless maintainer just announced taking a stand against AI/LLM generated slop patches with a new "three second review" rule, the broader Linux networking subsystem continues to be bombarded with AI-generated patches.

As the first new release since IceWM 4.0 released back on New Year's Day for this X11 window manager, IceWM 4.1 is now available.

Made public minutes ago is the Safe RET Interrupt Vulnerability which is now patched in the newest Linux kernel Git code. The Safe RET Interrupt Vulnerability stems from improper handling within Linux's Speculative Return Stack Overflow (SRSO) mitigation affecting AMD Zen 1 through Zen 4 processors.

6 August 12:00 PM EDT - Apple - Apple NVMe Firmware Woes

A set of patches providing fixes for the Apple Silicon NVMe driver for the Linux kernel were sent out today due to new issues cropping up when running newer Apple firmware. Firmware shipped by macOS 15+ is causing issues with the current Apple NVMe open-source Linux driver developed by the Asahi Linux crew.

If you are an early customer of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro or other Intel Core Ultra Series 3 Panther Lake laptop and using Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, there can be real benefit from upgrading your Mesa stack for the newer Iris Gallium3D and ANV Vulkan drivers. In this article are some benchmarks of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro with Core Ultra X9 388H with Arc B390 Xe3 integrated graphics for looking at the performance impact of using Mesa Git on Ubuntu Linux.

For nearly the past decade has been the kernel lockdown mode for tightening up kernel access from user-space such as when UEFI Secure Boot is enabled. The kernel lockdown mode restricts PCI BAR access, no writing to /dev/mem, and other restrictions so user-space can't modify the running kernel or access sensitive kernel memory. An oversight has allowed legacy I/O and memory interfaces via sysfs to remain open in lockdown mode, but a fix is on the way.

In addition to the Linux kernel staging area now rejecting AI/LLM-generated patches except for real security fixes, the Linux wireless networking code is also seeing some shifts around how it will deal with AI/LLM generated patches.

A new kernel feature proposed by a Google engineer is Page Alloc Hogger to allow for fine control over where memory pages are allocated in order to more easily reproduce low-memory conditions, make it simpler to exert memory pressure, and enable other stressful memory conditions for testing/debugging how Linux copes.

Earlier this year we began seeing patches for AMD GFX1170 graphics IP labeled as "RDNA 4m" and that was then completed with also adding GFX1171 and GFX1172 as additional targets for the AMDGPU LLVM compiler back-end and AMDGPU kernel driver. Merged today for Mesa 26.3 is now adding the GFX1171 target to Mesa 26.3 for the RADV and RadeonSI drivers.

Qualcomm engineers have initiated a discussion over upstreaming Synx to the Linux kernel, which is a global synchronization framework across different parts of SoCs. Qualcomm is already using Synx internally and is reported to provide "significant" power and performance benefits.

If you happen to have a gaming headset from the latest SteelSeries Nova 5X or Nova 7 series, the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel will begin properly supporting those headsets.

For those with one of the original Valve Steam Controllers from a decade ago and looking to make use of it with the native HID Linux driver outside of the Steam client or SDL, an important addition is coming with the Linux 7.3 kernel release later in the year.

5 August 06:59 PM EDT - GNU - Rust Coreutils 0.10

Rust Coreutils 0.10 is out today from the uutils project for this alternative to GNU Coreutils. Rust Coreutils 0.10 development focused on additional security hardening plus also increasing the GNU test suite compatibility and robustness.

Mesa 26.2 stable is now available as the newest quarterly feature release for this set of open-source OpenGL and Vulkan drivers typically used on Linux systems.

One of the nifty new features of Linux 7.2 is USB4STREAM as an Intel-developed solution for quickly sending data between USB4 connected systems. Now for the upcoming Linux 7.3 cycle, a busy poll mode is being added to provide lower-latency data transfers at the expense of increased CPU activity.

The newest Wayland compositor to talk about and discuss is Denial, a Wayland compositor focused on optimal Arch Linux integration and that embeds the Flutter engine directly into the codebase. Denial makes use of the Rust programming language and leverages Smithay to help in the compositor responsibilities.

5 August 09:16 AM EDT - AI - Cloudflare OS

Cloudflare today announced the open-sourcing of Cloudflare OS as an "open platform for agents, apps, and work." Cloudflare OS is an AI "operating system" but not in the traditional OS sense.

5 August 08:39 AM EDT - Intel - Dynamic Efficiency Control

A patch for the Intel P-State CPU frequency scaling Linux driver is pending to avoid confusing the processor firmware on newer platforms like Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" where Dynamic Efficiency Control (DEC) is supported.

There continues to be a lot of cleaning up of the kernel source tree to deal with noise generated by AI / LLM coding agents sending in reports and patches for old drivers that are likely not actively used by anyone on modern upstream kernel builds. Rather than continuing to carry these old drivers around with the uptick in AI/LLM-generated noise, kernel maintainers are finding it better to just retire the old drivers.

Overnight AMD engineers sent out their latest round of AMDGPU DC display code updates for their Linux driver. This week's round of display code updates include some additional fixes for their recently introduced HDMI FRL (Fixed Rate Link) support as part of the work toward their HDMI 2.1 implementation finally coming together for their open-source, upstream Linux driver.

FEX 2608 is now available as the newest monthly feature update to this open-source emulator sponsored by Valve for running x86_64 binaries on ARM64, including Steam and Windows games with Steam Play (Proton).

4 August 08:33 PM EDT - AMD - Enhanced Serial Peripheral Interface

AMD has posted patches proposing a new Linux subsystem for the Enhanced Serial Peripheral Interface (eSPI) standard that was in turn originally developed by Intel. With AMD now making use of eSPI, they are proposing a new subsystem for it within the Linux kernel, which includes a new driver for their hardware.

4 August 10:07 AM EDT - Coreboot - AMD openSIL + Phoenix AM5

Last week the 3mdeb firmware consulting firm released the first open-source firmware for a modern AMD Ryzen AM5 platform with their work to port AMD openSIL and Coreboot in their downstream Dasharo flavor to an MSI desktop ATX motherboard. Now that it's working out well, 3mdeb is working to upstream their AM5 platform support and Phoenix SoC support into upstream AMD openSIL as well as Coreboot.

Now this is a pleasant and very unexpected surprise... NVIDIA has become the latest premier sponsor of the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS).

4 August 08:14 AM EDT - AI - Tokenomics Foundation

Last month the Linux Foundation launched the x402 Foundation to standardize Internet-native payments for AI agents as their latest AI play. That followed other "AI" initiatives from dealing with AI exploits to AI asset and data exchange. Today they have another AI foray being announced with the creation of the Tokenomics Foundation.

While Linux's second-in-command Greg Kroah-Hartman does use AI / LLMs himself to success in the Linux kernel, given the "onslaught" of kernel patches produced by large language models and the intent on the Linux kernel's staging area being an area for newcomers to get involved, moving forward he's now rejecting AI/LLM-generated staging patches. But there is one exception and that is for genuinely valid security fixes.

Wild 0.10 released overnight as this very fast linker for Linux that is written in the Rust programming language and focused on iterative development.

For those with a MSI Claw A8 BZ2EM handheld gaming system, the model powered by the latest AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme SoC, an important addition is coming to the Linux 7.3 kernel so that the M-Center keys will be properly supported.

FFmpeg 9.0 is now available as the latest feature release for this widely used, open-source multimedia library.

3 August 08:36 PM EDT - Radeon - Soft Reset Recovery

In addition to the AMDGPU feature pull request to DRM-Next last week that landed DRM format modifiers for old AMD GPUs and a variety of other improvements, a secondary set of AMDGPU feature work followed that last week in preparation for the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window.

Merged back in Linux 7.3 was NULLFS as a "completely catatonic minimal pseudo filesystem". Now expected for Linux 7.3 is its sibling: FailFS.

zlib-rs 0.6.7 is out today as the newest version of this "safer zlib" implementation making use of the Rust programming language and aiming to deliver performance on-par with zlib-ng.

GNOME Boxes as a front-end to libvirt and QEMU is preparing to deliver a much improved virtualization experience for those wanting to enjoy desktop VMs from the GNOME desktop.

NVIDIA is kicking off the new month by releasing an updated R610 Linux driver build with quite a number of bug fixes.

It looks like Linux 7.3 will end up dropping FreeVxFS as the read-only Linux kernel driver for the Veritas VxFS file-ssytem used formerly by HP-UX and SCO UnixWare.

KDE developer David Edmundson announced today his KGamma2 tool in aiming to address a pain point for KDE Plasma desktop users on Wayland.

3 August 06:23 AM EDT - GNOME - Plus GNOME Shell 51 Beta

Released overnight on Sunday were the beta versions of Mutter 51 and GNOME Shell 51. This follows GNOME 51 embarking on itsAPI/ABI freeze, feature freeze, and UI freeze a day earlier.

With July all wrapped up, the monthly status report is now published for KDE Linux as the in-house Linux distribution featuring all of the latest KDE wares and other open-source innovations.

Within the Linux networking subsystem's "net-next" Git branch there is now queued up support for MCTP-over-USB v1.1. This is the newest version of the standard for sending Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP) packets over USB for tasks like crash dumps, logging, and firmware updates.

Queued into net-next ahead of the Linux 7.3 merge window is adding support for the Realtek RTL8261C and RTL8261D 10 Gigabit PHYs that launched last year.