Linux 6.18 RISC-V Default Kernel Builds To Support Front Panel Shutdown/Reboot Buttons

([RISC-V] 8 October 09:31 AM EDT Linux 6.18 RISC-V)

Following last week's RISC-V pull request that brought support for the MIPS Vendor Extensions and other changes plus separately the SoC pull that added mainline ESWIN EIC7700 SoC support and the HiFive Premier P550, a secondary round of RISC-V architecture updates was submitted for the Linux 6.18 merge window.

Blender 5.0 Beta Builds Available Ahead Of Next Month's Official Release

([Free Software] 8 October 09:05 AM EDT Blender 5.0 Beta)

Beta builds of the Blender 5.0 3D modeling software are now available ahead of the planned stable release in mid-November.

Linux Fair DRM Scheduler Graduates Out Of The "RFC" Phase

([Linux Kernel] 8 October 06:49 AM EDT Fair DRM Scheduler)

Tvrtko Ursulin of Igalia has been leading the work on developing a "fair" DRM scheduler for Linux kernel graphics drivers. This scheduling algorithm is inspired by CFS and aims to improve the experience of running interactive graphical clients in parallel with heavy GPU workloads. This scheduler is inching closer to being ready for the mainline Linux kernel.

GCC 16 Compiler Shifting To "Stage 3" Development Next Month

([GNU] 8 October 06:34 AM EDT GCC 16)

The GNU Compiler Collection will be shifting to its "stage three" development in November as focusing more on bug fixing now and new ports and less on existing compiler functionality/features.

KVM Virtualization Sees Several Exciting Improvements For AMD & Intel In Linux 6.18

([Virtualization] 8 October 06:23 AM EDT Linux 6.18 KVM)

In recent days there have been two rounds of Kernel-based Virtual Machine "KVM" feature updates to be merged for Linux 6.18 in enhancing the open-source virtualization stack.

Linux 6.18 exFAT Driver Lands An Enticing Optimization

([Linux Storage] 8 October 06:03 AM EDT exFAT)

In addition to the NTFS3 driver changes to land last week for the Linux 6.18 kernel, the exFAT file-system driver for that other Microsoft file-system has also seen some notable updates this cycle.

Meta Opens Up OpenZL As Format-Aware Compression Framework

([Free Software] 7 October 08:15 PM EDT OpenZL)

Meta already has Zstd (Zstandard) compression while this week they announced the release of OpenZL as a new open-source, format-aware compression framework.

Linux 6.18 Lands Initial Framework For USB Driver Rust Bindings

([Linux Kernel] 7 October 02:51 PM EDT char/misc pull)

In addition to a lot of rust code merged last week for Linux 6.18, more Rust code has since landed by way of the char/misc pull request.

Python 3.14 Released With Performance Improvements, Free-Threading & Zstd

([Programming] 7 October 12:51 PM EDT Python 3.14)

Python 3.14 is now available as the newest annual major feature release for the Python programming language.

AMD Announces Ryzen Embedded 9000 Series

([AMD] 7 October 12:36 PM EDT AMD Ryzen Embedded 9000 Series)

AMD today announced the Ryzen Embedded 9000 series for industrial computing and automation platforms.

The Many Memory Management Improvements In Linux 6.18

([Linux Kernel] 7 October 10:45 AM EDT Linux 6.18 Memory Management)

The many memory management "MM" changes were recently merged into the Linux 6.18 kernel, consisting of a number of interesting patch series.

Qualcomm Acquires Arduino, Announces Arduino UNO Q Built On Dragonwing

([Hardware] 7 October 10:00 AM EDT Qualcomm + Arduino)

Qualcomm announced today that they are acquiring Arduino, the popular open-source hardware/electronics prototyping platform for single-board micro-controllers.

Linear Address Space Separation Revised Following Prior Intel Engineer's Departure

([Intel] 7 October 09:01 AM EDT Linear Address Space Separation)

Being worked on for the past roughly three years has been Linear Address Space Separation "LASS" for the Linux kernel as a security improvement in light of Spectre/Meltdown.

Realtek ECC Engine Driver Upstreamed For Linux 6.18

([Linux Kernel] 7 October 08:20 AM EDT Realtek ECC Hardware Engine)

The Memory Technology Device "MTD" subsystem updates are merged for the in-development Linux 6.18 kernel.

Intel QAT Zstd Plugin 1.0 Released With Optimizations, Zstd 1.5.7 Support

([Intel] 7 October 06:38 AM EDT Intel QAT Zstd)

Initially released two years ago was an Intel QuickAssist/QAT adaptation for Zstd compression. The v0.1 release happened just over two years ago followed by a v0.2 release one year later... Since then, it had been all quiet. Arriving today to surprise is the QAT Zstd 1.0 plug-in release.

New In 2025: Linux Patches Enable PCI Support For The Amiga 4000

([Hardware] 7 October 06:26 AM EDT Amiga 4000 + PCI)

For any Amiga 4000 hobbyists running a Linux m68k operating system, a PCI driver was finally published three decades later for Linux. Patches posted for mainline Linux kernel review today enable the Mediator 4000 PCI bridge available for the Amiga 4000 computer from the early 90's.

Qt 6.10 Released With PipeWire Audio Backend & Many Other Improvements

([Qt] 7 October 06:04 AM EDT Qt 6.10)

Qt 6.10 is now available as the latest feature update to this open-source and cross-platform toolkit.

Loongson Security Engine Support Added To Linux 6.18

([Hardware] 7 October 06:13 AM EDT Loongson Security Engine)

Upstreamed for the Linux 6.18 kernel is supporting the Loongson Security Engine chip found on modern versions of these Chinese computing platforms.

Linux 6.18 To Support The Red & Green Status LEDs On QNAP NAS Devices

([Hardware] 7 October 05:54 AM EDT LEDs)

The LED subsystem updates don't tend to be too exciting each kernel cycle but for those with QNAP network attached storage (NAS) devices and wanting to run the mainline kernel, now you can have working red and green status LEDs.

Fedora 43 Landing Emergency Change To Increase /boot Due To NVIDIA GPU Firmware & Other Bloat

([Fedora] 6 October 08:32 PM EDT Bigger /boot)

Fedora 43 is working its way toward release in the coming weeks and is now going through a very late change. A change was announced and accepted today for increasing the size of the /boot partition. This is driven by the ever-increasing number of firmware files needed for different devices to function under Linux with open-source drivers. A large motivator to this change was the very large and growing NVIDIA GPU firmware file sizes for Nouveau and the future Nova driver.