Rex: Proposed Safe Rust Kernel Extensions For The Linux Kernel, In Place Of eBPF

([Linux Kernel] 22 December 09:18 AM EST Rust Rex)

University researchers presented Rex at this month's Linux Plumbers Conference 2025 in Tokyo. Rex is designed for "safe and usable" Rust-based kernel extensions that could serve in place of eBPF programs for extending the Linux kernel functionality.

Linux 7.0 To Remove Support For AMD's Never-Released Ryzen AI NPU2

([AMD] 22 December 08:55 AM EST AMD NPU2)

The upcoming Linux 7.0 kernel (unless it ends up being called Linux 6.20) will drop support for the AMD NPU2 as their second-generation neural processing unit that never ended up being released into any retail products.

NVIDIA's Quest For A "Safe" Linux Kernel For Automobiles, Robotics

([NVIDIA] 22 December 06:43 AM EST Automotive Safety Integrity Level ASIL-B)

NVIDIA engineer Igor Stoppa presented at the Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) earlier this month around using Linux in safety-critical environments like automobiles and the current shortcomings of the upstream Linux kernel and the challenges on achieving Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) certifications around the Linux kernel. It's an interesting read/watch around the safety of Linux (or not) for such strict safety environments.

Weston 15.0 Alpha Released With New Protocols, Experimental Vulkan Renderer

([Wayland] 22 December 06:17 AM EST Weston 15)

After being delayed by three months to allow additional time for new features to land, Weston 15.0 Alpha 1 is out today as a big feature release for this reference Wayland compositor.

Intel Releases GenAI Examples v1.5 - While Validating This AI Showcase On Old Xeon CPUs

([AI] 22 December 06:01 AM EST Intel Generative AI Examples 1.5)

Intel engineers as part of the OPEA Project today released the Generative AI Examples v1.5 update. This "GenAIExamples" open-source project is a collection of GenAI examples as part of showing the capabilities of the Open Platform for Enterprise AI (OPEA) and also highlighting Intel's hardware strengths for generative AI.

Intel Releases VA-API libva 2.23 Adds AV1 Profile 2 Support

([Intel] 22 December 05:44 AM EST libva 2.23)

Intel today released libva 2.23 as the newest feature release for this Video Acceleration API "VA-API" reference library implementation. Most significant with libva 2.23 is adding AV1 Profile 2 support.

Linux 6.19-rc2 Released Following A Quiet Week

([Linux Kernel] 21 December 07:04 PM EST Linux 6.19)

The second weekly release candidate of Linux 6.19 is now available for testing in leading up to the stable release in early February.

MPV 0.41 Released With Wayland Improvements, Vulkan Hardware Decoding Preferred

([Multimedia] 21 December 02:54 PM EST MPV 0.41)

MPV 0.41 is out today as the newest feature release for this MPlayer/mplayer2-derived open-source video player. With MPV 0.41 there is a big focus on improving Wayland support as well as now preferring Vulkan Video acceleration over alternative video decode APIs.

AMD ISP4 Linux Driver Patches Update Again For HP ZBook Ultra G1a, Future Ryzen Laptops

([AMD] 21 December 12:55 PM EST AMD ISP4 Driver v7)

One of the features that sadly didn't make it into the recent Linux 6.19 merge window was the long-awaited AMD ISP4 driver for supporting the web camera found with the high-end HP ZBook Ultra G1a and also expected to be used by future flagship AMD Ryzen laptops.

Intel Prepares For KVM Guest VMs To Support Advanced Performance Extensions (APX)

([Intel] 21 December 07:43 AM EST Intel APX For KVM Guests)

Since Linux 6.16 the Intel APX support has been ready for the kernel infrastructure and goes along with the compiler toolchain support for Advanced Performance Extensions with the likes of GCC and LLVM/Clang. The latest element being worked on for APX enablement in the open-source/Linux world is for allowing KVM guest virtual machines (VMs) to make use of APX.

Linux 6.19-rc2 Adding Support For CRKD Guitar Controllers

([Hardware] 21 December 06:38 AM EST CRKD Guitars)

Most notable with the input subsystem updates sent out today ahead of the Linux 6.19-rc2 release is some new hardware support. New this week is adding support for CRKD Guitars for those into musical gaming/apps.

WMI Marshalling Support For Linux Aims To Match Windows' ACPI/WMI Handling

([Hardware] 21 December 06:25 AM EST WMI Marshalling)

Open-source developer Armin Wolf has been working most recently on marshalling support for the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) platform code within the Linux kernel. This WMI marshalling support is to better match the behavior of Microsoft Windows' WMI ACPI driver and ultimately to allow for better compatibility with some ACPI firmware and enhancing some WMI drivers.

Linux 6.19 Lands Fix For Seagate Barracuda HDD Taking Down The SATA Bus

([Hardware] 21 December 06:11 AM EST Seagate HDD Workaround)

It's not often getting to talk about hard drives on Phoronix these days, but there's an important fix merged to the Linux 6.19 kernel today ahead of Linux 6.19-rc2. If you happen to be using a Seagate ST2000DM008 Barracuda 2TB HDD, an important fix was merged to avoid it taking down the systems' SATA bus and/or potentially other issues.

Darktable 5.4 RAW Photography Software Reaches Parity Between X11 & Wayland

([Free Software] 21 December 05:48 AM EST Darktable 5.4)

Darktable 5.4 is out today as the newest feature release to this open-source RAW photography software. Besides improving camera support, UI enhancements, and more the Wayland support has been improved with Darktable. With today's Darktable 5.4 release, the Wayland support should be on par with the X11 support.

GotaTun Open-Source Rust WireGuard Implementation Announced By Mullvad

([Linux Networking] 20 December 08:18 PM EST Mullvad GotaTun)

The Swedish VPN service Mullvad announced this week GotaTun, an open-source Rust-based WireGuard implementation that is forked from Cloudflare's BoringTun.

Intel Readies Multi-Queue Support For Linux 7.0 As New Feature For Crescent Island

([Intel] 20 December 03:25 PM EST Xe3P_XPC Multi-Queue)

In addition to this week's drm-intel-next pull request to DRM-Next adding Nova Lake display support, a drm-xe-next pull request was also sent out on Friday that prepares a new multi-queue feature for Xe3P_XPC -- initially just the "Crescent Island" AI inference accelerator card. Plus other new features too for this Xe kernel driver in the upcoming Linux 7.0~6.20 kernel version.

Arch Linux's Main NVIDIA Driver Packages Now Using The Open Kernel Modules

([Arch Linux] 20 December 02:08 PM EST NVIDIA Open Kernel Modules)

With the Arch Linux packages for the NVIDIA official graphics driver moving to the now-stable NVIDIA 590 driver series that drops the GeForce GTX 900 and GTX 1000 series GPU support, Arch Linux users with those old Maxwell and Pascal graphics cards will need to transition to using the NVIDIA legacy driver packages from the Arch Linux AUR. Meanwhile for those on Turing and newer with the NVIDIA 590 driver will enjoy the open-source kernel modules by default being used.

GNU Debugger 17.1 Released With CET Shadow Stack Support, New DAP Features

([GNU] 20 December 11:25 AM EST GDB 17.1)

The GNU Debugger "GDB" 17.1 is out today with a number of new features for enhancing the open-source debugging experience.

Linux Mint 22.3 Beta Released With Cinnamon 6.6 Desktop

([Operating Systems] 20 December 10:37 AM EST Linux Mint 22.3)

The beta release of Linux Mint 22.3 "Zena" is now available for testing ahead of the holidays for this latest incremental update to this desktop OS built atop an Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base.

Gemini AI Yielding Sloppy Code For Ubuntu Development With New Helper Script

([AI] 20 December 07:39 AM EST Gemini AI + Ubuntu Development)

A few weeks ago it was mentioned by a Canonical engineer how trying to use AI to modernize the Ubuntu Error Tracker yielded some code that was "plain wrong" and other issues raised by that Microsoft GitHub Copilot code. The same Ubuntu developer shifted to trying Gemini AI to generate a helper script to assist in Ubuntu's monthly ISO snapshot releases. Google's Gemini AI also generated some sloppy code for a Python script to assist in those Ubuntu releases.