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)

exFAT Achieves Better Sequential Read Performance With Linux 7.0

([Linux Storage] 15 February 06:15 PM EST Linux 7.0 exFAT)

The open-source Linux file-system driver for supporting Microsoft's exFAT now can deliver better sequential read performance with Linux 7.0 thanks to multi-cluster support.


wlroots 0.20 Nears Release With New Protocols, Enhanced Vulkan Renderer

([Wayland] 15 February 02:17 PM EST wlroots 0.20)

Version 0.20 of the popular wlroots Wayland support library is nearing its official release. Over the past week were two release candidates for wlroots 0.20 were published for this library used by Sway, Wayfire, Cage, Gamescope, and numerous other Wayland compositors.


Linux Kernel Improvement Can Make Hibernation Several Times Faster With Slow SSDs

([Linux Kernel] 15 February 06:48 AM EST Faster Hibernation)

A patch series sent out for review this weekend can significantly improve the system hibernation performance under Linux. Particularly for those with slower SSDs, the patches can make Linux hibernate up to several times faster.


Mesa's KosmicKrisp Vulkan-On-Metal Achieves MoltenVK Feature Parity

([Mesa] 15 February 06:34 AM EST KosmicKrisp)

Announced last year by consulting firm LunarG was KosmicKrisp as a Vulkan-on-Metal driver for efficiently leveraging the Vulkan API on Apple macOS systems as an alternative to the MoltenVK project. KosmicKrisp was upstreamed for Mesa 26.0 and continues making great progress for opening up more Vulkan possibilities in Apple's world.


NFS Server Adds Dynamic Thread Pool Sizing In Linux 7.0

([Linux Storage] 15 February 06:20 AM EST Dynamic Thread Pool Sizing)

The NFS server changes for Linux 7.0 happen to include some nice improvements for this big kernel version number release.


Power Sequencing Driver For PCIe M.2 Connectors Makes It Into Linux 7.0

([Hardware] 15 February 06:07 AM EST PCIe M.2 Connectors In Device Tree)

The power sequencing subsystem updates have been merged for the Linux 7.0 cycle. Typically not an area of the kernel too exciting but one new driver addition is the "pwrseq-pcie-m2" to provide power sequencing for PCIe M.2 connectors.


F2FS Delivers "Several Key Performance Optimizations" With Linux 7.0

([Linux Storage] 14 February 08:26 PM EST F2FS + Linux 7.0)

The Flash Friendly File-System (F2FS) has multiple performance improvements to provide its users with on the in-development Linux 7.0 kernel.


X.Org Server's "Master" Branch Now Closed With Cleaned Up State On "Main"

([X.Org] 14 February 05:47 PM EST xorg-server)

This Valentine's Day there is a lot of red on the screen for the X.Org Server with the code delta as a result of renaming of their main Git development branch and in the process selectively dropping questionable patches to the prior "master" codebase.


Vim 9.2 Released With Experimental Wayland Support, Better HiDPI Display Support

([Free Software] 14 February 03:28 PM EST Vim 9.2)

Vim 9.2 is out today as the newest feature release for this robust and comprehensive text editor. This Valentine's Day release for Vim lovers brings experimental Wayland support, XDG Base Directory specification support, modernized defaults for HiDPI displays, new completion features, and an improved diff mode.


Linux 7.0 Merges Support For Rock Band 4 PS4 / PS5 Guitars Plus More Laptop Quirks

([Hardware] 14 February 11:45 AM EST Linux 7.0 HID)

The HID subsystem changes were merged this week for the ongoing Linux 7.0 kernel merge window. Among the Human Interface Devices (HID) work this cycle were supporting more guitars while also adding more device IDs and different laptop quirks.


Intel Ends Work On Quantum Compiler Open-Source Bits

([Intel] 14 February 09:08 AM EST Intel Quantum Passes)

Following Intel recently discontinuing a number of open-source projects, this week they formally discontinued their Quantum Passes open-source project that was intended to provide additional passes for their LLVM-based compiler in the Intel Quantum SDK.


GNOME OS To Use systemd-confext, RustConn Provides Modern GTK4 Connection Manager

([GNOME] 14 February 07:04 AM EST GNOME OS)

In addition to this week's GNOME 50 beta release, there were also other exciting developments in the GNOME ecosystem.


Linux 7.0 Wires Up Arm's 64-byte Single-Copy Atomic Instructions LS64/LS64V

([Arm] 14 February 06:47 AM EST ARM64 LS64/LS64V)

Beyond all of the exciting Intel/AMD x86_64 changes and improvements to enjoy with the upcoming Linux 7.0, there is one notable ARM64 feature addition this kernel cycle.


Linux 7.0 Lands 8D-8D-8D Octal DTR Support In SPI NAND For Better Performance

([Linux Storage] 14 February 06:23 AM EST 8D-8D-8D Octal DTR)

The Linux Memory Technology Device (MTD) subsystem updates have been merged for the Linux 7.0 kernel and include introducing Octal DTR "8D-8D-8D" support in SPI NAND for better performance.


Firmware Upstreamed For Linux Speaker Support On The ASUS Zenbook 14 UM3406GA

([Hardware] 14 February 06:11 AM EST UM3406GA)

For those that may be considering the new ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3406GA) laptop that has been refreshed for the new AMD Ryzen AI 400 series, Cirrus Logic has now upstreamed the necessary firmware for the cs35l41 audio amplifier for working speaker support.


KDE Plasma 6.6 Sees Last Minute Fixes, Plasma 6.7 Aims For Painless Samba Shares

([KDE] 13 February 08:40 PM EST KDE Plasma 6.6)

KDE's Plasma 6.6 desktop release is due out next week (17 February) and there's been some last minute fixes to land. Additionally, KDE Plasma developers continue to be quite active in already landing feature work for Plasma 6.7.


Godot 4.7 Making Progress On Vulkan Ray-Tracing

([Linux Gaming] 13 February 08:17 PM EST Vulkan Ray-Tracing + Godot)

One of the latest exciting developments for the open-source Godot game engine is beginning to lay out support for Vulkan ray-tracing.


GNOME 50 Beta Released With Stable VRR, GDM Improvements

([GNOME] 13 February 04:09 PM EST GNOME 50 Beta)

The GNOME 50 beta release is now available ahead of the official GNOME 50 desktop due out in March.


NVIDIA Posts Open-Source Nouveau GSP Driver Support For GA100

([NVIDIA] 13 February 02:36 PM EST NVIDIA GA100 + Nouveau GSP)

One of the latest NVIDIA open-source contributions this week wasn't for the in-development Nova kernel driver but for enhancing the existing Nouveau kernel driver. The patch posted is for bringing up the NVIDIA GA100 GPU under Nouveau using the GPU System Processor (GSP).


Multi-Lane SPI Support Merged For Linux 7.0

([Linux Kernel] 13 February 01:32 PM EST Multi-Lane SPI)

With the Serial Peripheral Interface "SPI" subsystem updates for the Linux 7.0 kernel comes support for multi-lane SPI.


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People (a group that in my opinion has always attracted an undue amount of
attention) have often been likened to snowflakes. This analogy is meant to
suggest that each is unique -- no two alike. This is quite patently not the
case. People ... are simply a dime a dozen. And, I hasten to add, their
only similarity to snowflakes resides in their invariable and lamentable
tendency to turn, after a few warm days, to slush.
-- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies"