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.

Microsoft's DXGKRNL Driver Updated For Linux - Many Changes After Four Years

([Microsoft] 19 March 05:21 PM EDT DirectX Kernel Driver)

Well, here's an unexpected surprise... A new version of the Linux kernel patches for DXGKRNL were posted today for that DirectX kernel driver that began a few years ago for supporting Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL) use-cases. This comes four years to the month after the prior version was posted and without much excitement for getting it into the mainline Linux kernel.

Thunderbird Looks To Finalize Its Exchange Support, Refresh The Calendar UI

([Mozilla] 19 March 03:42 PM EDT Thunderbird Mail Client)

Thunderbird announced today the availability of their public roadmaps where they are making it easier for end-users to comprehend what they are currently working on for this mail client not only for the desktop builds but also their Android and iOS versions too.

AMD Preps More GFX12.1 Enablement For Linux 7.1, Initial VCN 5.0.2 & JPEG 5.0.2 IP

([AMD] 19 March 03:25 PM EDT AMD GFX12.1)

AMD today sent out another batch of AMDGPU kernel graphics driver and AMDKFD kernel compute driver changes to DRM-Next ahead of next month's Linux 7.1 merge window.

Wayland 1.25 Released With Color Management Now Fully Documented

([Wayland] 19 March 12:20 PM EDT Wayland 1.25)

Simon Ser just released Wayland 1.25.

Blender 5.1 Delivers Some Nice Gains For CPU Rendering Performance On Linux

([Software] 19 March 12:05 PM EDT Add A Comment)

With this week's release of Blender 5.1 I have begun benchmarking it on different CPUs and GPUs. In this article is an initial look at the positive impact Blender 5.1 is having on CPU-based rendering performance on Linux.

GNUnet 0.27 Released For Those With "Some Reasonable Pain Tolerance"

([GNU] 19 March 11:29 AM EDT GNUnet 0.27)

Version 0.27 of GNUnet is now available for this free software framework for constructing decentralized, peer-to-peer networking. But it comes with some big caveats before use.

Mozilla Releases Llamafile 0.10 To Enhance Their AI Offering For Easy-To-Use LLMs

([AI] 19 March 08:21 AM EDT Llamafile)

The last release of Llamafile was back in May and it's led me recently to wonder if Mozilla was slowly abandoning this AI project like they had done in the past to DeepSpeech and other software projects. Fortunately, that's not the case and out today is Llamafile 0.10 with some big updates.

OpenGL Lands New Extension To Benefit Wine

([Mesa] 19 March 08:05 AM EDT MESA_map_buffer_client_pointer)

The OpenGL API is still seeing new extensions introduced in 2026. Merged today to the OpenGL Registry is a new extension intended to help Wine usage for 32-bit Windows games/apps on 64-bit Linux systems.

Opera GX Web Browser Released For Linux

([Proprietary Software] 19 March 06:22 AM EDT Opera GX + Linux)

It's been a while since most of you probably thought about the Opera web browser, but these days they have been catering their "Opera GX" web browser to gamers. Today they have finally delivered this Opera GX gaming-focused browser for Linux users.

Linux 7.1 Should See Working HDMI Support For The Lichee Pi 4A RISC-V Board

([Hardware] 19 March 06:13 AM EDT TH1520 HDMI)

Drew Fustini sent out DeviceTree patches this past weekend for enabling the HDMI display controller on the T-Head TH1520 RISC-V SoC. Additionally, there's a patch for lighting up the HDMI display support on the LicheePi 4A RISC-V board.

Canonical Collecting Wish List Ideas For Improving Mir

([Ubuntu] 19 March 06:04 AM EDT How To Improve Mir)

With Ubuntu 26.04 LTS quickly approaching release next week, Canonical is beginning more of their road-mapping for Ubuntu 26.10 and beyond. To help in plotting future work, Canonical is interested in feedback for features or improvements that developers/users would like to see around their Mir project.