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)

ARM64 SMT Run-Time Controls Staged Ahead Of Linux 6.15

([Arm] 18 March 06:47 AM EDT SMT Toggling)

If you happen to have a rare ARM64 platform with Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) support, with the upcoming Linux 6.15 kernel there is set to finally be run-time SMT controls similar to the functionality long available on x86/x86_64 processors.



Theora 1.2 Beta Released After 16 Years

([Multimedia] 18 March 06:31 AM EDT libtheora 1.2 beta)

Theora is Xiph.Org's first released video codec designed for use with Ogg. Theora started out based on the VP3 codec. It's been over 16 years since the release of the libtheora 1.0 reference software implementation and tagged this week was libtheora 1.2 beta.



ollama 0.6.2 Released WIth Support For AMD Strix Halo

([Programming] 18 March 06:15 AM EDT ollama 0.6.2)

The ollama open-source software that makes it easy to run Llama 3, DeepSeek-R1, Gemma 3, and other large language models is out with its newest release. The ollama software makes it easy to leverage the llama.cpp back-end for running a variety of LLMs and enjoying convenient integration with other desktop software.



Nginx Rejects Dark Mode Support For Error Pages

([Free Software] 17 March 02:39 PM EDT No Dark Mode For Nginx Error Pages)

A pull request was opened last week for adding web browser dark mode support for Nginx error pages. Unfortunate for those who prefer browsing in dark mode and then shocked when hitting Nginx-served 404 error pages or similar, the change has been rejected.



Big Rust Update Merged For GCC 15 - Lands The Polonius Borrow Checker

([GNU] 17 March 01:05 PM EDT GCCRS Adds Polonius Borrow-Checker)

Some 145 patches for the Rust "gccrs" front-end were posted today and subsequently merged to GCC Git ahead of the upcoming GCC 15.1 stable release.



AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Linux Performance

([Processors] 17 March 11:00 AM EDT 23 Comments)

Last week AMD began shipping the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D Zen 5 3D V-Cache desktop processors. We delivered Ryzen 9 9950X3D benchmarks and review for launch day but AMD sadly didn't seed any review samples of the 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X3D processor. Being curious about its performance for Linux developers, enthusiasts, and technical computing workloads, I bought the $600 USD processor on launch day for delivering some Linux benchmarks. Here is a look at the Ryzen 9 9900X3D against the rest of the Ryzen 9000 series stack, the prior Ryzen 7000 series parts, and the Intel Core Ultra Arrow Lake competition under Ubuntu.



Intel XeSS SDK 2.0.1 Published With New XeSS 2 Features, Still Closed-Source

([Intel] 17 March 09:57 AM EDT Intel XeSS SDK 2.0.1)

The Intel XeSS SDK 2.0.1 was published today to GitHub as their first XeSS 2.0 release being available there and their first released version since the XeSS SDK 1.3.1 update from last July. While on GitHub, the XeSS SDK remains closed-source and Windows-focused.



Raspberry Pi RP2350 Now Available For Purchase, Stacked Memory Variant Coming Soon

([Raspberry Pi] 17 March 08:49 AM EDT Raspberry Pi RP2350)

Raspberry Pi last year announced the RP2350 second-generation micro-controller that debuted within their $5 Raspberry Pi Pico 2 single board computer. Today they announced the RP2350 micro-controller is now available to purchase for your own micro-controller needs.



FFmpeg Lands Vulkan Improvements With Initial FFV1 Vulkan Decoder

([Multimedia] 17 March 08:00 AM EDT FFmpeg FFV1 Vulkan-Based Decoder)

FFmpeg developer Lynne has landed a number of Vulkan Video improvements today into FFmpeg Git. In addition, there is now an FFV1 Vulkan-based decoder.



FreeDesktop.org GitLab Begins Its Week Long Cloud/Server Migration

([Free Software] 17 March 06:49 AM EDT FreeDesktop.org)

It's going to be a light week for development of the Mesa graphics drivers, Wayland, various other X.Org related components, and the dozens of other open-source projects that rely on the FreeDesktop.org GitLab for facilitating merge requests, CI testing, and related infrastructure. The FreeDesktop.org server/cloud migration has begun and may last until next weekend.



Ubuntu 25.04 To Enable NVIDIA Dynamic Boost By Default

([Ubuntu] 17 March 06:37 AM EDT Ubuntu 25.04 + NVIDIA Dynamic Bost)

The upcoming Ubuntu 25.04 Linux OS release will be enabling NVIDIA Dynamic Boost support by default when using their packaged driver support on capable laptops.



GIMP 3.0 Stable Being Released As Long-Awaited Update To Adobe Photoshop Alternative

([Free Software] 17 March 06:14 AM EDT GIMP 3.0)

After some 13 years of writing about GIMP 3.0 development, today is finally the day: GIMP 3.0 has been tagged and is in the process of being released.



Linux 6.14-rc7 Released With v6.14 Final Expected Next Weekend

([Linux Kernel] 16 March 07:05 PM EDT Linux 6.14-rc7)

Linus Torvalds just released the Linux 6.14-rc7 kernel with expectations of releasing Linux 6.14 stable next weekend.



DXVK-NVAPI 0.9 Brings New Features For NVIDIA GPUs With Valve's Steam Play

([Valve] 16 March 01:41 PM EDT DXVK-NVAPI 0.9)

Following the DXVK 2.6 release from a few days ago for Direct3D 8/9/10/11 atop Vulkan and ahead of the upcoming Proton 10.0 release for further enhancing Valve's Steam Play, out today is DXVK-NVAPI 0.9 as the NVIDIA NVAPI integration for use with DXVK.



Arm Changing Linux Default To Costly "KPTI" Mitigation For Some Newer CPUs

([Arm] 16 March 10:38 AM EDT CVE-2024-7881)

For some newer Arm core designs, Arm is changing the Linux kernel to defaulting to enabling Kernel Page Table Isolation "KPTI" if not running on a new firmware version in order to properly mitigate a recently disclosed CPU security issue. This change has been queued up and is expected to change the default with the upcoming Linux 6.15 kernel.



Huawei Matebook E Go Laptops To Be Better Supported With Linux 6.15

([Hardware] 16 March 10:18 AM EDT Huawei Matebook E Go)

For those that happen to have a Huawei Matebook E Go 2-in-1 laptop or have been considering these ARM laptops, the upcoming Linux 6.15 kernel will be better supporting these devices thanks to a new driver set to be merged.



Linux 6.14-rc7 To Support A Few More Gaming Controllers

([Linux Kernel] 16 March 07:01 AM EDT XPad Additions)

Ahead of the Linux 6.14-rc7 kernel release later today, a set of input subsystem updates were merged overnight that add in support for a few more gaming controllers.



One Line Of Code Optimizes F2FS Performance For Small Multi-Threaded Writes

([Linux Storage] 16 March 06:38 AM EDT F2FS Optimization)

An SK engineer has posted a Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) driver optimization for Linux that one line of code changed is helping with performance especially for multi-threaded workloads involving small writes to SSD storage.



Linux Kernel's Rust Support Being Expanded To HID Drivers

([Hardware] 16 March 06:27 AM EDT Linux + Rust + HID Drivers)

A set of patches were posted to the Linux kernel mailing list this week that are working on initial Rust programming language abstractions for enabling HID device driver development.



Debian 12.10 Released With More Bugs Fixed & Security Updates

([Debian] 15 March 07:30 PM EDT Debian 12.10)

Debian 12.10 is out today as the newest routine media refresh for the Debian 12 "Bookworm" Linux distribution release.



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