ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Linux 7.0 Graphics Drivers See New AMD Hardware, Intel Xe SR-IOV + Multi-Device SVM

([Linux Kernel] 11 February 08:35 PM EST Linux 7.0 DRM)

The massive set of Linux kernel graphics/display driver Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) updates were sent out and merged today for the Linux 7.0 kernel. This also includes the growing work around accelerator "accel" drivers for AI NPUs and the like.


Linus Torvalds Rejects MMC Changes For Linux 7.0 Cycle: "Complete Garbage"

([Linux Storage] 11 February 05:33 PM EST MMC Subsystem)

The Linux MultiMediaCard "MMC" subsystem was set to see some new hardware support, optimized support for secure erase/trim on some eMMCs, and a variety of other improvements. But all of the MMC changes are rejected and will be for the duration of the Linux 7.0 cycle due to an apparent lack of testing and vetting via linux-next that led Linus Torvalds to calling it "complete garbage" and "untested crap".


Linux Kernel Graphics Driver Development Now Experimenting With AI Code Review

([Linux Kernel] 11 February 03:44 PM EST AI Patch Review)

Well known open-source Linux graphics driver developer David Airlie of Red Hat, who is the co-maintainer of the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) kernel graphics/display drivers and accelerator "accel" drivers, announced experimental work on AI-drive code/patch review for these open-source kernel drivers.


Sabayon Linux Creator Now Developing Gentoo-Based, Immutable matrixOS

([Operating Systems] 11 February 03:30 PM EST matrixOS)

Longtime Linux users may recall the Sabayon Linux distribution that was Gentoo-based and focused on a nice out-of-the-box experience from the mid 2000s through 2019 before fading away after 2018. Sabayon Linux creator Fabio Erculiani wrote in to Phoronix today to announce he's begun working on a new Linux distribution called matrixOS.


Mesa 26.0 Released With Much Better Radeon Ray-Tracing, Many Vulkan Driver Improvements

([Mesa] 11 February 01:36 PM EST Mesa 26.0.0)

Mesa 26.0 was just officially released as this quarter's new feature release for these open-source OpenGL / Gallium3D and Vulkan drivers used commonly on Linux systems and elsewhere like within the confines of Microsoft's WSL.


Chrome 146 Now In Beta With WebNN Origin Trial For Neural Networks In The Browser

([Google] 11 February 01:29 PM EST Chrome 146 Beta)

Following yesterday's Chrome 145 release with JPEG-XL support, Chrome 146 today was promoted to the beta channel to help facilitate broader testing of the next round of Chrome/Chromium browser improvements.


Intel Arc B390 Panther Lake Generational Performance Since The Gen9 Graphics Era

([Graphics Cards] 11 February 11:38 AM EST 4 Comments)

Last week on Phoronix we provided initial Linux graphics benchmarks for the new Xe3-based Arc B390 graphics found with the higher-end Panther Lake SoCs with 12 Xe cores. Those benchmarks showed great gains over recent generations of Intel graphics like with Lunar Lake, Meteor Lake, and even Alder/Raptor Lake... But what if you hold onto your laptop for even longer? In this article is an Intel integrated graphics comparison looking at the general performance and power efficiency going all the way back to the Gen9 graphics era for what seemed like an eternity of Gen9-derived graphics during the Skylake era.


AMD ROCm TheRock 7.11 Released, Ubuntu Making Progress On Shipping ROCm Packages

([AMD] 11 February 11:00 AM EST AMD ROCm)

Two useful bits of ROCm news today for those interested in AMD's open-source GPU compute stack.


Linux Mint Developing New Wayland-Compatible Screensaver

([Operating Systems] 11 February 10:45 AM EST Linux Mint)

The Linux Mint developers have been hard at work continuing to develop new features following their recent Mint 22.3 release. There is continued enhancements around keyboard support, a new administration tool for users, and there are also considerations being made around moving to a longer development cycle between Linux Mint releases.


Linux 7.0 Now Defaults To Intel TSX Auto Mode For Performance Benefits On Newer CPUs

([Intel] 11 February 09:11 AM EST Intel TSX Performance)

The x86/cpu changes have been merged for Linux 7.0 and include finally setting the default Intel TSX mode to "auto" rather than being off by default.


OpenVPN 2.7 Released With Multi-Socket Server & DCO Linux Kernel Driver Support

([Linux Networking] 11 February 08:27 AM EST OpenVPN 2.7)

For those using the open-source OpenVPN for your virtual private networking (VPN) needs, OpenVPN 2.7 is out today with some notable improvements.


Intel Releases New Compute Runtime, Upstreams More SYCL Code To LLVM

([Intel] 11 February 08:19 AM EST Intel Compute Runtime + IGC)

Intel today released a new version of their Compute Runtime stack and IGC graphics compiler for Level Zero and OpenCL usage with their integrated and discrete graphics. Separately they also upstreamed more SYCL code this week into mainline LLVM.


Linux 7.0 Scores +12% In UDP Network Performance Test From Manually Inlining Function

([Linux Networking] 11 February 06:32 AM EST Performance Improvement)

The core timer changes to the Linux 7.0 kernel score a rather nice performance improvement in a UDP receive network stress test from inlining a function that compilers haven't been able to tackle with their optimizations.


Upstream Wine Making Progress On Patches For Satisfying Adobe Photoshop

([WINE] 11 February 06:08 AM EST Adobe Photoshop Installer)

There were recently patches for getting the Adobe Photoshop 2025 installer to work on Linux under Wine. Those patches were picked up by Wine-Staging and now more traction is coming for getting those patches into the upstream Wine codebase, some of which have now been merged.


Compiler-Driven Static Analysis Locking Context Checking Merged For Linux 7.0

([Linux Kernel] 11 February 05:56 AM EST Linux 7.0 Locking)

The locking code changes have been merged for the Linux 7.0 kernel and it introduces support for a new compiler-driven feature being introduced on the compiler side with the upcoming LLVM Clang 22.


Google Chrome 145 Released With JPEG-XL Image Support

([Google] 10 February 07:26 PM EST Chrome 145)

Back in 2022 Google deprecated and then removed JPEG-XL image support from the Chrome/Chromium browser codebase and now in 2026 it's back. Last month I wrote about JPEG-XL decoding merged back to Chromium/Chrome and that has rolled out today as part of today's Chrome 145 stable debut.


Linux 7.0 Scheduler Updates Land Time Slice Extension, Performance & Scalability Work

([Linux Kernel] 10 February 05:28 PM EST Linux 7.0 Scheduler)

Merged today for the Linux 7.0 kernel are some pretty exciting scheduler changes: new features and never-ending work around scheduler performance optimizations and greater scalability with today's increasingly high core count systems.


Go 1.26 Introduces Two Language Changes, New Performance Improvements

([Programming] 10 February 03:20 PM EST Go 1.26)

For programmers fond of the Go programming language, Go 1.26 is out today with two language changes, performance improvements, and other alterations to this Google-backed programming language.


Intel CPU Microcode 20260210 Brings Security Updates & Functional Fixes

([Intel] 10 February 01:46 PM EST Intel 20260210 Microcode)

Intel today for Patch Tuesday released several generations worth of CPU microcode updates for addressing multiple security issues and functional issues.


Linux 7.0 Bringing Mainline Support For The SpacemiT K3 RVA23 SoC, Qualcomm Kaanapali

([Hardware] 10 February 01:24 PM EST Linux 7.0 SoCs)

The various SoC and platform Device Tree additions were sent out today for the Linux 7.0 kernel. Easily most exciting on the SoC side this cycle among the ARM and RISC-V changes is getting support ready for the SpacemiT K3 RVA23 SoC.


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The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes -- that it
leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere
effects -- this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could,
science would explain the origin of life on earth at once--and there is
every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow.
To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled,
not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give
ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity....
-- H. L. Mencken, 1930