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)

Intel Linux NPU Driver 1.6 Released For Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake & Lunar Lake

([Intel] 15 August 02:00 AM EDT Intel Linux NPU Driver 1.6)

Intel engineers on Wednesday released the Linux NPU Driver v1.6 release for this for this MIT-licensed user-space mode driver support for the Neural Processing Unit (NPU) found since the Core Ultra Series 1 "Meteor Lake" SoCs and currently supporting the upcoming Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake processors as well. This Intel Linux NPU Driver in user-space interfaces with their iVPU kernel accelerator driver for making a nice open-source and upstream NPU software stack on Linux systems.


Canonical's Netplan 1.1 Improves Compatibility With Proton VPN & Microsoft's Azure Linux

([Free Software] 15 August 12:00 AM EDT Netplan 1.1)

For Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Canonical released Netplan 1.0 as their declarative network configuration software spanning now from servers to desktops. In time for Ubuntu 24.10 due out in two months, Netplan 1.1 has been released as the next iteration of this Linux networking configuration software from Canonical.


Mesa 24.2 Released With New Vulkan Extensions, New Shader Cache

([Mesa] 14 August 02:14 PM EDT Mesa 24.2)

Mesa 24.2 is out today as stable for this quarterly feature release to these open-source OpenGL and Vulkan drivers used commonly on Linux systems and other platforms.


Gentoo Linux Ending Itanium IA-64 Support

([Operating Systems] 14 August 12:54 PM EDT Killing Off Itanium)

Gentoo Linux was one of the last few Linux distributions continuing to maintain Itanium (IA-64) architecture builds but that is now being phased out for those discontinued Intel processors.


SiFive Announces P870-D For Up To 256 RISC-V Cores

([RISC-V] 14 August 09:00 AM EDT SiFive P870-D)

SiFive today lifted the lid on the P870-D, its new RISC-V processor dor data center and AI workloads. The P870-D is designed to scale up to 256 cores while supporting modern features like CXL and other AI/HPC minded features.


AMD Ryzen 9 9950X & Ryzen 9 9900X Deliver Excellent Linux Performance

([Processors] 14 August 09:00 AM EDT 114 Comments)

Last Wednesday was the review embargo for the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X Zen 5 desktop processors that proved to be very exciting for Linux workloads from developers to creators to AVX-512 embracing AI and HPC workloads. Today the review embargo lifts on the Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X and as expected given the prior 6-core/8-core tests: these new chips are wild! The Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X are fabulous processors for those engaging in heavy real-world Linux workloads with excellent performance uplift and stunning power efficiency.


AMD To Provide Update On Long-Term Strategy For Open-Source Firmware

([AMD] 14 August 06:54 AM EDT OpenSIL)

Next month AMD will be providing an update on their long-term strategy for open-source firmware. Central to their open-source firmware plans is their OpenSIL effort that remains in development for eventually replacing AGESA on future generations of Ryzen and EPYC platforms.


New Linux Driver Supports Corsair VOID Gaming Headsets

([Hardware] 14 August 06:30 AM EDT Corsair VOID Linux Support)

A new driver has been posted for better supporting the Corsair VOID gaming headsets under Linux.


New Linux Kernel Patches Better Prepare For sched_ext

([Linux Kernel] 14 August 06:13 AM EDT sched_ext)

While Linus Torvalds called for including the "sched_ext" extensible scheduler in Linux 6.11, he ultimately decided not to merge it for Linux 6.11 after some technical issues were raised on the Linux kernel mailing list.


Weston 14.0 Alpha Brings New Wayland Compositor Features

([Wayland] 14 August 06:19 AM EDT Weston 14.0 Alpha)

The first alpha release of the Weston 14.0 reference Wayland compositor is now available with a handful of new features.


Haiku OS R1 Beta 5 Approaching Soon, New Performance Improvements

([Operating Systems] 14 August 06:01 AM EDT Haiku OS)

The BeOS-inspired Haiku open-source operating system is out with their latest status update that highlights various improvements made in recent weeks.


Intel Publishes Updated CPU Microcode For A Variety Of Security & Functional Issues

([Intel] 13 August 10:11 PM EDT Intel Microcode 20240813)

Intel published a number of new CPU microcode images this Patch Tuesday for addressing various security issues as well as a number of functional issues being addressed across different CPU client and server processor generations.


Intel Begins Queuing Kernel Graphics Driver Changes For Linux 6.12

([Intel] 13 August 05:12 PM EDT Intel DRM-Next)

Intel Linux graphics driver engineers today sent in their first batch of patches to DRM-Next of new material they are prepared to introduce with the upcoming Linux 6.12 kernel cycle.


Framework Laptop 13 With Intel Core Ultra Series, 2.8K 120Hz Display

([Computers] 13 August 12:00 PM EDT 19 Comments)

Back in May the folks at Framework Computer announced Framework Laptop 13 support for the Intel Core Ultra Series 1 (Meteor Lake) alongside announcing a new 2.8K 120Hz display option, a new web camera upgrade, and new colors for their expansion cards. Today marks the review embargo expiration with the hardware now shipping. Here's my initial look at the Intel Core Ultra Series (Meteor Lake) within the confines of the modular and upgradeable Framework Laptop 13.


ASUS ROG Ally X Audio Support Being Fixed Up Ahead Of Linux 6.12

([Hardware] 13 August 06:55 AM EDT ASUS ROG Ally X)

In addition to the ASUS ROG Ally X revision of this handheld gaming console having more (and faster) system memory, doubling of the battery capacity, upgraded storage, improved cooling, and other refinements over the original ROG Ally gaming handheld, there is a different audio amplifier. In turn a Linux kernel patch is needed to fix-up the audio support on the ASUS ROG Ally X as well as needing to fetch a new firmware binary.


AMDVLK 2024.Q3.1 Brings Official Ubuntu 24.04 Support & New Performance Tuning

([Radeon] 13 August 06:32 AM EDT AMDVLK 2024.Q3.1)

Hitting the release button minutes ago, AMDVLK 2024.Q3.1 is available as the newest version of AMD's official open-source Vulkan driver and the first new release since the end of June. This driver continues to trail in popularity to the likes of the Valve-backed Mesa RADV Radeon Vulkan driver but does well in areas like Vulkan ray-tracing and is officially backed by AMD.


Apple Silicon OpenGL & Vulkan Drivers Updated In Mesa 24.3 Git

([Mesa] 13 August 06:12 AM EDT AGX Gallium3D + Honeykrisp)

Yesterday was a fresh sync of the Asahi Linux projecr's AGX Gallium3D and Honeykrisp drivers to the upstream Mesa 24.3-devel Git repository. Some 42 patches are now upstream in Mesa for benefiting OpenGL and Vulkan atop Apple Silicon graphics.


Mir-Based Miracle-WM Updated Ahead Of Fedora Miracle Spin

([Wayland] 13 August 06:19 AM EDT Miracle-WM 0.3.1)

Miracle-WM as a reminder is a Wayland tiling window manager that is built atop Canonical's Mir. Miracle-WM also happens to be developed by a Canonical engineer, Matthew Kosarek. Miracle-WM is inspired by i3 and Sway but the main difference is turning to Mir to do the heavy lifting. Miracle-WM 0.3.1 was released on Monday as the project prepares for its Fedora Miracle Spin debut coming up.


FEX 2408 Emulator For x86_64 Binaries On AArch64 Teases More Performance

([Free Software] 13 August 12:00 AM EDT FEX 2408)

FEX 2408 has been released as the newest update to this open-source emulator that allows for running x86/x86_64 games and application binaries on AArch64 (64-bit ARM) systems. There are some nice improvements to find with FEX 2408 while already the next release is being teased for even greater performance.


Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS Delayed To End Of Month

([Ubuntu] 12 August 03:57 PM EDT Ubuntu 24.04.1 Delay)

Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS was scheduled to ship this week but has now been delayed to the end of August in order to address some high profile upgrade bugs.


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A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of
being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of
incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague
assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents
and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of
dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of
annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was
unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place.
-- IEEE Grid newsmagazine