Five Proposals Now Being Weighed For Debian AI/LLM Usage

([Debian] 30 July 05:47 AM EDT Debian AI Usage)

Last week Debian developers began considering a general resolution over AI large language model (LLM) usage within the Debian project. They are now up to weighing five different proposals for how to permit or block AI/LLM usage in the Debian space.

Intel Media Driver & VPL GPU Runtime 2026Q2 Updates Continue Prepping For Nova Lake

([Intel] 30 July 05:38 AM EDT Intel Nova Lake)

Over the past few Intel VA-API Media Driver releases we have seen preparations made for Nova Lake video acceleration. That has continued today with the Intel Media Driver and Intel oneVPL GPU Runtime releases today with their new quarterly feature releases.

COSMIC Epoch 1.5 Brings More Fixes & Improvements To System76's Desktop

([Desktop] 29 July 08:21 PM EDT COSMIC Epoch 1.5)

The System76 and Pop!_OS developers continue quickly iterating on their Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment.

DRM Format Modifiers For Old AMD GPUs Coming With Linux 7.3: Thanks Valve

([Radeon] 29 July 04:47 PM EDT DRM Format Modifiers For GFX6 To GFX8)

Sent out today was another week's worth of features and other code changes to the AMDGPU kernel graphics driver and AMDKFD kernel compute driver. We are nearing the cut-off of new feature material for next month's Linux 7.3 kernel but there is some nice feature work in store for this week.

Steam Client Adds HDR Streaming On Steam Deck OLED, AV1 Video Streaming

([Valve] 29 July 03:07 PM EDT Steam Video Stream)

Today's Steam client beta update brings some new game streaming enhancements for Linux gamers.

Intel Graphics Driver Support For Xe3 "Peak Bandwidth Threshold" Feature In Linux 7.3

([Intel] 29 July 09:12 AM EDT Intel Peak Bandwidth Threshold)

Intel today sent out their latest batch of kernel graphics driver updates that are ready for staging ahead of next month's Linux 7.3 merge window.

Valve Sponsors Work Bringing Open-Source RADV Driver To Windows

([Radeon] 29 July 06:35 AM EDT Radeon RADV On Windows)

Valve has been sponsoring Collabora engineers with early phase, exploratory work for trying to bring the open-source Radeon Vulkan "RADV" driver to Microsoft Windows.

Vibe Coded X11 YSERVER Gets Steam Working, Full-Screen Games With Cinnamon

([X.Org] 29 July 06:19 AM EDT YSERVER 1.4)

A new software creation that debuted this summer was YSERVER as a modern X11 server written in Rust largely by AI via Claude Code. This YSERVER implementation has continued implementing more X11 protocol and other functionality to get more desktop environments and apps working surprisingly okay on this vibe coded X11 server. YSERVER 1.4 is now available as the latest in this quest.

FreeBSD's Kernel Still Has A Bit Of GPL Code While Its Base User-Space Is GPL-Free

([BSD] 29 July 05:57 AM EDT FreeBSD + GPL)

A few weeks ago there was excitement in the FreeBSD camp with FreeBSD 16 set to retire the last of its GPL code from the base system. While the retiring of the dialog code proclaimed that it was the last remaining piece of GPL software in the base system for FreeBSD, it turns out now that there is some GPL code within the FreeBSD kernel.

GCC To Decline Any Significant Contributions Made Via AI/LLMs - Except For Test Cases

([GNU] 29 July 05:43 AM EDT No AI Contributions)

The GCC Steering Committee announced today that they have accepted the recommended policy of the GCC AI Policy Working Group, which means no "legally significant" code contributions made via AI/LLM agents will be accepted into this open-source compiler.

ARCTIC Launches Its New Fan Controller That Already Has Mainline Linux Support

([Hardware] 28 July 08:38 PM EDT ARCTIC Fan Controller)

In over 22 years of Linux hardware reviews and testing at Phoronix, I have never been more excited for a fan controller... ARCTIC today launched their new Fan Controller and in making the product very unique for Linux users, it already has mainline Linux kernel support via a open-source driver contributed directly by ARCTIC.

Starling: A New Linux Desktop Written In Swift, Own Wayland Compositor & Written With AI

([Desktop] 28 July 11:50 AM EDT Starling)

There's yet another new open-source desktop option for Linux users in the era of new open-source projects largely written via AI/LLMs. Starling is this new project largely written via Claude and using the Swift programming language for the desktop while having its own Wayland compositor implemented in C. It also includes a built-in X11 server for handling X11 clients.

AMD P-State Linux Driver Patches Can Boost 1%-Low FPS Gaming Performance By 31%

([AMD] 28 July 06:03 AM EDT AMD P-State)

A set of patches posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list implement per-core Energy Performance Preference (EPP) boosting for recently-busy CPUs. This feature is designed to have a dramatic impact for Linux gaming and helping especially with the 1% low frame-rates improving by 31.8% on the Valve Steam Deck.

Linux's crypto_rng Abstraction Layer Next On The Chopping Block

([Linux Kernel] 28 July 05:41 AM EDT crypto_rng)

In addition to the deprecation and stripping down of AF_ALG, another piece of the Linux kernel crypto code steaming ahead toward removal is the crypto_rng abstraction layer.

KDE Developer Fixing Long-Standing Bug Over Very Long Small-File Copy Times

([KDE] 28 July 05:50 AM EDT Ridiculous File Copy Times)

Since 2014 there has been a KDE bug report titled Ridiculously slow file copy (multiple small files). With the Dolphin file manager or other KIO-based KDE programs, copying many small files can be much slower than using the cp command directly or other copying programs like rsync, Finally that issue is in the process of being resolved for addressing very slow copy times when dealing with many small files on the KDE Plasma desktop.

ASUS Laptop Whisper Mode Support Being Worked On For Linux

([Hardware] 28 July 05:25 AM EDT ASUS Whisper Mode)

ASUS laptops support a feature called "Whisper Mode" that intentionally slows down the fan speed and lowers the CPU clock speed in order to keep the device running cool and quiet. The open-source ASUS Armoury Linux kernel driver is now seeing patches to properly support this Whisper Mode on Linux.

AMD PMF Testing Tool Slated For Linux 7.3

([AMD] 27 July 05:28 PM EDT AMD PMF Testing Tool)

Looking to be added to the Linux kernel source tree for the upcoming Linux 7.3 cycle is test_amd_pmf, a small testing application for exercising the AMD Platform Management Framework (PMF) interfaces and dumping various system data points.

Mysterious 16-Tile & 32-Tile AMX Implementations Talked Up For More Performance

([Hardware] 27 July 12:41 PM EDT Advanced Matrix Extensions)

Last October on Phoronix we were first to point out there being some mysterious intrigue around a new x86 implementation from a "corporate entity other than Intel/AMD" with the developer involved not elaborating on the matter. Now that same developer has posted another semi-cryptic message to the Linux kernel mailing list to talk about 16-tile and 32-tile Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX) implementations. To date Intel only has 8-tile AMX.

Fwupd 2.1.7 Released With Many Bug Fixes

([LVFS] 27 July 12:17 PM EDT Fwupd 2.1.7)

Fwupd 2.1.7 is out today as the newest update to this open-source firmware updating utility that pairs with the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) for offering a nice firmware upgrade story on Linux systems.

Framework Laptop 13 Pro: Aiming To Be One Of The Best Upgradeable Linux Laptops

([Computers] 27 July 11:00 AM EDT 31 Comments)

Back in April, Framework Computer announced the Framework Laptop 13 Pro as a ground-up re-design of their modular/upgradeable laptop. This new Framework Laptop 13 Pro features a much larger battery (74Wh), LPCAMM2 memory support, a full CNC aluminum chassis, haptic touchpad, and a new power-optimized touch display. Paired with the very efficient Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" SoCs, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro ends up being an incredible offering from the hardware perspective.