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)

Sashiko Now Providing AI Reviews On Rust Code For The Linux Kernel

([AI] 21 March 08:22 PM EDT Sashiko Covering Rust-For-Linux)

A few days ago Google engineers went public with Sashiko with their agentic AI code review for the Linux kernel. The Google Gemini Pro powered AI code review service is automatically monitoring the Linux kernel mailing list for new patch submissions and has proven useful already. Interest continues to build by upstream Linux kernel stakeholders around Sashiko and the latest addition is now covering the Rust-For-Linux mailing list submissions.



Linux Driver Being Worked On For Pulsar Gaming Mice

([Hardware] 21 March 10:29 AM EDT Pulsar Gaming Mouse Linux Driver)

A Linux HID driver is being developed for Pulsar branded gaming mice to expose additional information and capabilities.



LibreOffice 26.8 To Add A Donation Banner To Its Start Center

([LibreOffice] 21 March 09:22 AM EDT LibreOffice 26.8 Donation Banner)

LibreOffice 26.8 merged initial support for adding a donation banner to its Start Center. This initial UI when launching LibreOffice aims to make users aware of the community-driven focus of the project and to hopefully solicit additional donations from the community.



Linux 7.0 Lands Fix For Years Old Bug Affecting AMD Hainan GPUs

([Radeon] 21 March 07:04 AM EDT AMD Hainan Fix)

Merged overnight for Linux 7.0 and set to be back-ported to existing Linux stable kernel versions is a fix for aging AMD GCN 1.0 "Hainan" GPU models. This closes a 2021 bug report that was long neglected and ended up being just a small tweak to fix the issue reported of GPU hangs.



KDE Plasma 6.7's KWin Lands Support For 3D LUTs To Help With Modern GPUs

([KDE] 21 March 06:47 AM EDT 3D LUTs)

In addition to releasing Plasma 6.6.3 this week, KDE developers remain quite busy working on new features for the Plasma 6.7 desktop while also already queuing some changes for the next Plasma 6.6.4 point release.



SUSE's Agama Installer Sees Architectural Revamp

([SUSE] 21 March 06:29 AM EDT Agama 19 Installer)

The modern Agama OS installer for SUSE/openSUSE is out with its first new release since November. With the time since the prior release, SUSE engineers have been making key improvements to Agama and enhancing its architecture to more align with their original vision for it.



SysV Init 3.16 Released With Cleanups, Improved systemd Unit To SysV Script Conversion

([Free Software] 21 March 06:04 AM EDT SysV Init 3.16)

For any holdouts still running SysV Init instead of systemd or other alternatives like OpenRC, SysV Init 3.16 is out as the first release in a half-year and bringing a few refinements.



Cambalache 1.0 Released After Five Years For Designing Modern GTK UIs

([GNOME] 20 March 08:48 PM EDT Cambalache 1.0)

Cambalache 1.0 released today after more than five years in development as a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) application for creating and editing user interfaces for both GTK3 and GTK4.



OpenShot 3.5 Released As One Of Their "Biggest Releases" Ever

([Free Software] 20 March 08:31 PM EDT OpenShot 3.5)

OpenShot 3.5 hit the web today for this open-source non-linear video editor that describes the new version as one of their "biggest releases" ever in its 18+ year history.



Wine 11.5 Release Is Big: Syscall User Dispatch Feature Supported On Linux

([WINE] 20 March 05:18 PM EDT Wine 11.5)

Wine 11.5 is out today as the latest bi-weekly development release for this software to run Windows games and applications on Linux and other platforms. Most exciting with Wine 11.5 is the introduction of the Syscall User Dispatch feature on Linux.



Dell Upstreams Firmware For The XPS Snapdragon X Elite Laptop

([Hardware] 20 March 11:24 AM EDT Dell XPS 13 9345 (2024) Laptop)

When it comes to using Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 Elite laptops on Linux, one of the big challenges have involved the need to extract the necessary firmware from the Windows 11 partition due to most vendors not providing the firmware in an easily redistributable and public form. The one exception has been the Lenovo ThinkPad with X1 Elite having upstream firmware in linux-firmware.git while now the Dell XPS model has joined the party too.



SteamOS 3.8 Preview Preps For Steam Machine, KDE Plasma Desktop With Wayland By Default

([Valve] 20 March 10:23 AM EDT SteamOS 3.8 Preview)

In addition to last night's Steam client beta with Steam Runtime container support for the client and that SteamRT3 client now a 64-bit build, Valve also released a big preview update to the forthcoming SteamOS 3.8. The SteamOS 3.8 preview release brings initial support for Steam Machine hardware, various handheld gaming device support improvements, various other Steam Deck updates, improved compatibility with newer Intel and AMD platforms, and its KDE Plasma desktop is now using Wayland by default.



Ubuntu 26.04 Delivers Enhanced Performance For AMD Radeon Linux Gaming

([Linux Gaming] 20 March 10:30 AM EDT 10 Comments)

Earlier this month was a preview of the Ubuntu 26.04 performance benefits for NVIDIA Linux gaming while today's article is providing an early look at how the open-source AMD Radeon gaming experience is looking for the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release.



Patches Sent Out For Booting Linux On Apple M3 But Without Much Functionality

([Apple] 20 March 09:03 AM EDT Apple M3 On Linux)

Asahi Linux developers have been working for a while now on porting Asahi Linux to the Apple M3 hardware that launched back in 2023. Sent out today to the Linux kernel mailing list were finally Device Tree files for booting Linux on Apple M3 hardware but it's far from functional for end-users.



Linux Patches Updated To Steal Tasks For Improving CPU Utilization

([Linux Kernel] 20 March 08:16 AM EDT Stealing Tasks To Improve Utilization)

Huawei engineer Chen Jinghuang posted the latest request for comments (RFC) patches for stealing tasks from overloaded CPUs in the same last level cache (LLC) in order to improve overall CPU utilization with today's large core count servers.



Ubuntu Maker Canonical Announces MicroCloud Cluster Manager

([Ubuntu] 20 March 06:43 AM EDT MicroCloud Cluster Manager)

Ubuntu maker Canonical announced today MicroCloud Cluster Manager that is now in beta as a new cloud platform for managing lightweight cloud clusters.



Mageia 10 Beta Now Available For Those Who Reminisce About Mandrake Linux

([Operating Systems] 20 March 06:30 AM EDT Mageia 10)

It's been nearly three years since the release of Mageia 9 for this Linux distribution who's lineage traces back to the glorious Mandrake Linux. Following the Mageia 10 alpha release back in January, Mageia 10 beta builds are now available.



Vulkan 1.4.347 Debuts With Three New Extensions

([Vulkan] 20 March 06:34 AM EDT Vulkan 1.4.347)

Vulkan 1.4.347 made its debut overnight as the latest routine update to this high performance graphics and compute API. Beyond the usual maintenance churn over the past week, Vulkan 1.4.347 brings three new extensions.



Linux 7.1 Adding DRM Dedicated CRTC Background Color Property

([Linux Kernel] 20 March 06:11 AM EDT CRTC Background Color)

Sent out today was the latest weekly round of drm-misc-next patches for queuing ahead of the Linux 7.1 merge window that is set to happen in mid-to-late April.



Steam Linux Beta Prepares For 64-bit, Can Be Run Inside Steam Runtime Container

([Valve] 20 March 05:56 AM EDT Steam Linux Beta)

An interesting new Steam client beta dropped overnight from Valve with some exciting low-level enhancements.



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... when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer
has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor.
-- Fred Brooks