Intelligence Feed
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Con Kolivas Revives "-ck" Patches & MuQSS To Improve Linux Desktop Responsiveness
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Mon, 17 Aug 2026 06:26:08 -0400 · HIGH 67
Huge surprise this morning! Longtime Linux users may recall the out-of-tree work done years ago by open-source developer Con Kolivas... And as part of that his work on the Brain F*** Scheduler that evolved into the MuQSS scheduler, all in the name of working to improve Linux desktop and mobile responsiveness. While a number of years ago he decided to retire from this out-of-tree Linux kernel work, out of the blue he
AMD GAIA 0.23 Delivers Ability To Install/Run AI Agents From The Terminal
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Thu, 13 Aug 2026 20:33:01 -0400 · HIGH 65
AMD's GAIA open-source AI software built atop Lemonade for serving as an AI companion for emails, a Bash coding agent, and other AI agent skills is out with a new version today with more features while also improving security and making other improvements...
Lemonade 11.6 Integrates Muse-Glimmer 30B, Experimental TheNoise ROCm Image Generation
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:00:22 -0400 · HIGH 65
For those dabbling with generative AI on the weekends, the AMD-led Lemonade SDK 11.6 is out today with its newest feature release of this open-source software for running local AI apps with optimized LLMs across CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs...
Security updates for Wednesday
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:03:48 +0000 · MEDIUM 49
Security updates have been issued by <b>AlmaLinux</b> (fence-agents, firefox, frr10, gstreamer1-plugins-good, iscsi-initiator-utils, isns-utils, kernel, kernel-rt, perl-DBI:1.641, postgresql, postgresql:12, and resource-agents), <b>Debian</b> (libgd2, openjdk-25, php7.4, php8.2, and postfix), <b>Fedora</b> (clamav, domoticz, and libidn), <b>Red Hat</b> (delve, edk2, firefox, go-fdo-client, go-fdo-server, grafana, hos
Open-Source exFAT Programs 1.4.3 Improves Fsck & Mkfs
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 05:44:14 -0400 · MEDIUM 47
Ahead of the Linux 7.2 kernel release expected on Sunday, a new release of the exFAT file-system user-space programs was released overnight...
Patches Posted For Fixing The Linux DRM Scheduler's Fair Policy
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 06:04:16 -0400 · MEDIUM 47
Ahead of the Linux 7.2 kernel release expected out on Sunday, the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem was forced to revert their "fair" scheduler policy default new for this kernel. Due to a last minute user-reported regression, FIFO returns as the default DRM scheduler policy for Linux 7.2. But patches are now available for addressing that regression and thus hopefully for Linux 7.3 there will be the fair sched
D7VK 2.1 Brings Faster Load Times, More Performance Tweaks
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:26:46 -0400 · MEDIUM 47
D7VK as the open-source implementation of the Direct3D 7 / 6 / 5/ 3 APIs atop the Vulkan API for Linux/Wine usage is out with another feature update. D7VK continues to mature quite well for further enhancing these older Direct3D API versions that cover the span prior to DXVK's focus of Direct3D 8 to Direct3D 11 or VKD3D-Proton's Direct3D 12...
AMD Posts Massive 109 Patch Series For GFX 12.1 RAS Support On Friday Evening
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 21:01:22 -0400 · MEDIUM 47
AMD has a tendency to send out large feature patch series for their open-source Linux drivers on Friday afternoons/evenings. Today we were greeted by a set of 109 patches working on RAS support for the upcoming AMD GFX12.1 target...
New Linux Driver Enables 12VHPWR Monitoring For ASUS ROG Astral Graphics Cards
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sun, 16 Aug 2026 06:19:06 -0400 · MEDIUM 47
For those concerned about current imbalance or voltage changes with the 12VHPWR power connectors and having an ASUS ROG Astral graphics card, there is now an open-source driver for Linux available that integrates with the hardware monitoring (HWMON) subsystem for 12VHPWR reporting on these ASUS graphics cards...
GNU Linux-libre 7.2-gnu Released Following More Driver Cleaning
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Mon, 17 Aug 2026 05:27:57 -0400 · MEDIUM 47
Following yesterday's release of the Linux 7.2 kernel, GNU Linux-libre 7.2-gnu is now available for this kernel downstream that strips out support for drivers depending upon non-free-software microcode/firmware, the ability to load closed-source kernel modules, and other restrictions in the name of software freedom...
ARM64 BBML3 Feature Ready With Linux 7.3, NVIDIA Olympus Workarounds
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Mon, 17 Aug 2026 06:00:50 -0400 · MEDIUM 37
AI/LLM patch craziness hurt ARM64 development for the Linux 7.2 cycle that no real features landed for that kernel version on AArch64. Fortunately, the ARM Linux developers are more prepared now and for Linux 7.3 are introducing some new ARM64 features...
Linux 7.3 binfmt_misc To Allow BPF Programs To Dynamically Choose Execution Environments
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sun, 16 Aug 2026 06:37:13 -0400 · MEDIUM 27
The Linux kernel's binfmt_misc functionality allows non-native/custom files to be run directly such as for Windows EXE files to be handled by Wine or JAR files to be handled by the Java runtime. For the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window, the miscellaneous binary formats support is being extended so a binary type can be matched programmatically and the interpreter determined on a per-exec basis. BPF programs can also th
Debian Developers Begin Voting Over LLM Usage Within The Project
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sat, 15 Aug 2026 06:40:04 -0400 · MEDIUM 25
Debian developers have been considering a general resolution over LLM usage within the project. After collecting a variety of proposals, voting has now commenced for Debian developers to decide how comfortable they are with AI / Large Language Model contributions in the project or not...
Linux 7.2 Released With Faster I/O, New AMD & Intel Driver Improvements
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sun, 16 Aug 2026 19:12:47 -0400 · MEDIUM 25
Linus Torvalds just released Linux 7.2 as stable! After a very busy kernel cycle due to the increased patch and reporting churn due to AI/LLM ages, Linux 7.2 managed to make it out today on-schedule for this feature-packed kernel. Linux 7.2 is going on to power Ubuntu 26.10 and other upcoming Linux distribution releases...
KTransformers 0.7 Expands AVX-512 Support To Benefit AMD EPYC Servers
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Mon, 17 Aug 2026 07:28:12 -0400 · MEDIUM 25
KTransformers as the framework for heterogeneous LLM inference and fine-tune optimizations is out today with its v0.7 feature release...
Security updates for Thursday
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Thu, 13 Aug 2026 13:12:41 +0000 · MEDIUM 21
Security updates have been issued by <b>AlmaLinux</b> (abrt, dhcpcd, edk2, freerdp, gegl04, grafana, gstreamer1-plugins-good, iscsi-initiator-utils, isns-utils, kernel, kernel-rt, keylime, libarchive, libyang, nodejs-nodemon, opencryptoki, osbuild-composer, pacemaker, postgresql-jdbc, postgresql18, python-idna, python3.9, udisks2, valkey, vim, xorg-x11-server-Xwayland, and yggdrasil-worker-package-manager), <b>Debian
Security updates for Friday
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 13:18:05 +0000 · MEDIUM 21
Security updates have been issued by <b>AlmaLinux</b> (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, bind, bind9.16, and dracut), <b>Debian</b> (apr-util, chromium, postgresql-17, python-httplib2, unzip, and zip), <b>Fedora</b> (erlang-cowboy, erlang-cowlib, flatpak, and libnfs), <b>Gentoo</b> (Apache HTTPD, Bubblewrap, Dnsmasq, Exim, Flatpak, libinput, and rsync), <b>Mageia</b> (dhcpcd, qemu, and roundcubemail), <b>Oracle</b> (.NE
Bernard: GNOME Shell design dreams
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Tue, 11 Aug 2026 14:03:25 +0000 · LOW 9
<p>GNOME contributor Tobias Bernard has <a href="https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2026/08/11/gnome-shell-design-dreams/">published
a blog post</a> that details some of the design team's ideas for the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Shell">GNOME Shell</a> over the long term:</p>
<blockquote class="bq">
<p>Some of these we have relatively complete plans for, others are
more vague ideas that need more res
[$] KVM planes head for takeoff
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Tue, 11 Aug 2026 14:48:19 +0000 · LOW 9
Virtualization places a guest system into a separate security domain,
typically with fewer privileges than software running directly on the host.
Increasingly, there is interest in creating multiple security domains
within a single virtualized system as well. CPU vendors (and software
vendors too) are implementing solutions; each of which, of course, is
different from all of the others. KVM planes, currently under
QEMU 11.1 released
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Wed, 12 Aug 2026 15:28:48 +0000 · LOW 9
<p><a href="https://www.qemu.org/2026/08/11/qemu-11-1-0/">Version
11.1</a> of the QEMU emulator has been released. The release contains
more than 3,200 commits from 285 authors and includes a long list of
improvements; see the announcement and <a href="https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/11.1">changelog</a> for the
details.</p>
<p></p>
[$] A look at CrossPoint e-reader firmware
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Wed, 12 Aug 2026 15:33:41 +0000 · LOW 9
<p>There are <a href="https://crosspointreader.com/devices">a number of small,
inexpensive, low-powered e-reader or e-paper devices</a> that have promise as
ebook readers with one minor problem: the firmware they ship with does not
realize their full potential. To solve that problem, the <a href="https://crosspointreader.com/">CrossPoint Reader project</a> looks to
provide replacement firmware that offers necessary f
[$] Block-layer error injection
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Wed, 12 Aug 2026 18:34:01 +0000 · LOW 9
<p>Storage code has to cope with hardware that fails in inconvenient
ways, but coaxing a healthy disk into producing those failures on
demand, for testing, is usually not possible. The kernel
provides several ways to inject block-layer <span class="nobreak">I/O</span> errors, but none of those can select the
operation to fail, pick the status code to return, or target a disk
directly without employing a stacked dev
[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for August 13, 2026
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:23:17 +0000 · LOW 9
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
<p>
<ul>
<li> <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/1087432/">Front</a>: BPF and binfmt_misc; CrossPoint ebook firmware; KVM planes; BPF formal verification; shadow-utils; new storage-code testing features.
<li> <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/1087434/">Briefs</a>: Django releases; GNOME shell; LightDM 1.33.0; QEMU 11.1; uutils 0.10; Software Stewar
[$] 128-Bit page tables for Arm
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Thu, 13 Aug 2026 13:46:28 +0000 · LOW 9
The size of a processor's page-table entries directly limits how much
physical memory that processor is able to access. Back in the 32-bit days,
that limit was 4GB, an amount of memory that once seemed nearly infinite,
but which would now struggle to hold a basic AI-enabled "hello world" app.
The expansion to 64 bits on most popular architectures would seem to
have removed those limits now; some Arm systems, fo
rsync 3.5.0 released
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Thu, 13 Aug 2026 13:47:49 +0000 · LOW 9
<p><a href="https://download.samba.org/pub/rsync/NEWS#3.5.0">Version
3.5.0</a> of rsync has been released with a <a href="https://download.samba.org/pub/rsync/NEWS#SECURITY_FIXES-3.5.0">huge
number of security fixes</a>:</p>
<blockquote class="bq">
This release fixes 33 security issues found during a focused audit of
rsync's path handling and daemon protocol, a companion daemon-protocol
fuzzing pass, and reports fro
Domas: Bypassing memory protection with AMD's memory controllers
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Thu, 13 Aug 2026 19:06:28 +0000 · LOW 9
<p>
Christopher Domas has
<a href="https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/skitter-creek-bath-salts#skitter-creek-bath-salts">published</a> a proof of concept with a description showing how to use AMD memory controllers' bank swizzle mode to bypass memory protection and read or write arbitrary data, including CPU microcode definitions and memory belonging to the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_P
Python packaging council candidates announced
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 14:07:50 +0000 · LOW 9
<p>The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has <a href="https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2026/08/announcing-packaging-council-election.html">announced</a>
the <a href="https://www.python.org/nominations/elections/2026-python-packaging-council/nominees/">candidates</a>
running for the Python packaging council that was <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/1068704/">approved by the Python steering council
in April</a>.</p>
<bloc
[$] BPF, continuous testing, and stable kernels
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 14:46:40 +0000 · LOW 9
<p>
Ihor Solodrai and Shung-Hsi Yu wrapped up the BPF track at the 2026
<a href="https://events.linuxfoundation.org/lsfmmbpf/">
Linux
Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit</a> with a pair of
sessions related to testing.
Solodrai spoke about what has changed for BPF's continuous-integration (CI)
testing. Yu spoke about what may be
needed to test BPF updates in stable kernels more thoroughly. The
BPF s
The 7.2 kernel has been released
LWN Headlines · Linux/System · src 9 · Sun, 16 Aug 2026 23:11:28 +0000 · LOW 9
The <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/1089033/">7.2 kernel</a> has been released.
Linus said:
<p>
<blockquote class="bq">
Well, this last week of the release was - once again - bigger than
I would have wished for, but hey, with the whole "new normal"
thing, if I delayed releases for that reason we'd probably never
have a release at all.
</blockquote>
<p>
Significant features in this release include
<a href="https
The Beneficial Performance Gains Running The Framework Laptop Pro 13 / Core Ultra X9 388H With Linux 7.1+
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Thu, 13 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0400 · LOW 7
The recently launched Framework Laptop 13 Pro powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" runs well on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and other modern Linux distributions. In the case of Ubuntu 26.04 with Linux 7.0, while everything works, if upgrading to Linux 7.1 or the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel is even better performance. Here are benchmarks of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro with Core Ultra X9 388H across the Linux 7.0, 7.
The Best Linux 7.2 Features: Cache Aware Scheduling, AMD Zen 6, AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 FRL
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Thu, 13 Aug 2026 15:57:51 -0400 · LOW 7
With the Linux 7.2 kernel expected to be released on Sunday, 16 August, here is a look at some of the most interesting new features and changes to find with this next kernel version to be used by Ubuntu 26.10 and other upcoming Linux distribution releases...
KDE, Techpaladin & Kubuntu Focus Announce The Bullet-Proof KDE Software Initiative
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Thu, 13 Aug 2026 16:08:00 -0400 · LOW 7
KDE e.V. along with Linux PC vendor Kubuntu Focus and KDE-aligned consulting firm Techpaladin Software have announced a collaboration of the "bullet-proof KDE Software initiative" for providing at least three years of bug fixes and security updates to KDE Plasma 6.6 LTS and related software...
Slackware-Based Zenwalk Linux Aims For "True Low Latency Desktop Experience"
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 05:30:21 -0400 · LOW 7
It's been a long time since hearing much out of the Zenwalk project, the Linux distribution built off Slackware. It's still around though and with their latest kernel work are hoping for a "true low latency desktop experience" by employing the BORE scheduler...
Features Coming For Linux 7.3 From Optimizing Intel Hybrid CPUs To Old AMD Athlon XPs
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:00:45 -0400 · LOW 7
With Linux 7.2 expected to see its stable debut Sunday, here is a look at what I have been monitoring as changes expected to be submitted during the Linux 7.3 merge window that will open on Monday...
Linux 7.1, Linux 7.2 Performance On The Intel Xeon 600 Series
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:18:11 -0400 · LOW 7
With Linux 7.2 expected for its stable release this weekend, today's testing has some additional testing of the Linux 7.2 Git kernel as well as Linux 7.1 stable compared to Linux 7.0 as used by default on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. Phoronix testing previously conducted of Linux 7.2 have shown benefits for Intel Arc B390 Xe3 in some configurations, faster poll performance on AMD Ryzen Threadripper and other hardware, and some
Omarchy 4.0 Linux Distro Released With Desktop Shell Now Implemented Via Quickshell
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Fri, 14 Aug 2026 14:10:15 -0400 · LOW 7
Omarchy as the Arch Linux distribution developed by David Heinemeier Hansson "DHH" / Basecamp is out today with Omarchy 4.0 as the distro's biggest release to date...
KDE Plasma 6.8 To Allow Fine-Tuning Mouse/Touchpad Speeds
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sat, 15 Aug 2026 06:51:30 -0400 · LOW 7
KDE developers continue to be quite busy this summer baking improvements for the upcoming Plasma 6.8 desktop release. This Week in Plasma is out with its newest issue to outline all of these interesting enhancements...
Late Sound Fixes For Linux 7.2 Bring More Device Quirks, Intel Nova Lake HDMI-In Capture
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sat, 15 Aug 2026 07:03:00 -0400 · LOW 7
Ahead of the presumed Linux 7.2 stable kernel release tomorrow, some last minute sound fixes/quirks have been merged for this next kernel version...
RustConn 0.20 Continues Further Polishing This GTK4/libadwaita-Based Connection Manager
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sat, 15 Aug 2026 07:55:04 -0400 · LOW 7
RustConn has been in development for a while now as a modern GTK4 connection manager supporting a variety of protocols like SSH, RDP, VNC, Telnet, and more. RustConn 0.20 was released this week as the latest major step forward to this Rust-based connection manager leveraging the GTK4 toolkit and libadwaita...
Intel's Jay Graphics Shader Compiler Now Passing Vulkan CTS With Xe2/Xe3 Hardware
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sat, 15 Aug 2026 10:23:19 -0400 · LOW 7
Last year Alyssa Rosenzweig joined Intel to work on their Linux graphics drivers after previously serving as a contractor for Valve on their graphics stack and also previously leading the Mesa driver work for the Asahi Linux Apple Silicon graphics support. Since joining Intel, she has been leading the development of Jay as a new SSA-based shader compiler for Intel graphics hardware to be used by the Mesa Iris Gallium
GNOME 51 Beta Released With Many Minor Improvements
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sat, 15 Aug 2026 13:12:27 -0400 · LOW 7
The beta release of GNOME 51 is now available for testing. This cycle for the beta milestone is mostly a wide collection of minor improvements throughout the vast package set...
Marek Olšák's 19 Latest Patches Further Optimizing RADV & ACO
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sat, 15 Aug 2026 20:17:05 -0400 · LOW 7
Legendary Mesa Radeon Gallium3D driver developer Marek Olšák who was a longtime AMD employee and then joined Valve's Linux graphics driver team earlier this year has continued his focus now on perfecting his art around the RADV Vulkan driver and ACO shader compiler...
AVX-512 xor_gen Continues To Look Exciting For Helping Linux RAID With Modern CPUs
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sun, 16 Aug 2026 06:54:19 -0400 · LOW 7
Google engineer Eric Biggers back in June posted an AVX-512 optimization for Linux RAID yielding up to a 41% improvement on a modern AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) processor. A revised patch then put it as much as a 43% improvement for this AVX-512 optimized xor_gen() function. The code hasn't yet been merged to mainline but an updated version of it is now available...
Debian Marks 33rd Birthday As One Of The Oldest Maintained Linux Distros
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sun, 16 Aug 2026 10:13:46 -0400 · LOW 7
Today marks thirty three years since the Debian Linux distribution was started by the late Ian Murdock...
tlbi= Boot Option Submitted Ahead Of Linux 7.2 Kernel Release
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sun, 16 Aug 2026 13:01:03 -0400 · LOW 7
Ahead of the Linux 7.2 kernel stable release expected to occur in the coming hours, a last minute "x86/urgent" pull request was submitted with one patch for adding the new tlbi= boot option...
GIMP Making Progress On New Project File Format After Nearly 30 Years With XCF
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Sun, 16 Aug 2026 16:15:33 -0400 · LOW 7
The GIMP project has published their latest development update to highlight the interesting work that's ongoing toward GIMP 3.4 and future releases...
Linux 7.3 On PowerPC Now Supports In-Kernel Rust, Initial Power12 Enablement Begins
Phoronix · Linux/System · src 7 · Mon, 17 Aug 2026 06:13:42 -0400 · LOW 7
The PowerPC pull request has already been sent in for the now open Linux 7.3 merge window. The headline feature this cycle on the POWER side is Rust kernel support for PowerPC 32-bit PPC32BE big endian and PowerPC 64-bit PPC64LE little endian architectures...