With Q2'2026 drawing to a close, as part of the different quarterly recaps of popular areas on Phoronix, here is a look back at the most popular AMD Linux/open-source news of the quarter.

During this quarter there were more than 137 original news articles pertaining to AMD Linux/open-source topics. Similar to the recent [1]Intel Linux recap for Q2 , below is a look at the most popular AMD Linux news of the quarter on Phoronix. Plus the most popular AMD Linux hardware reviews/benchmarks for this quarter as well. As always, if you enjoy all the daily open-source/Linux original content on Phoronix please consider [2]joining Phoronix Premium .

Topping out Q2 on the AMD side included:

[3]AMD & Intel Roll Out New Linux Updates For Today's Patch Tuesday

Today's Patch Tuesday is a busier one than normal for the quarter. Both AMD and Intel have rolled out new updates for Linux customers among other security disclosures today. Thankfully though the vulnerabilities don't appear to be too widespread or impactful.

[4]The New Linux Kernel AI Bot Uncovering Bugs Is A Local LLM On Framework Desktop + AMD Ryzen AI Max

Earlier this month on Phoronix we were the first to draw attention to a new fuzzing tool / AI bot uncovering kernel bugs by Greg Kroah-Hartman, the "second in command" for Linux kernel development and stable maintainer. Greg has now shared more light on the "gregkh_clanker_t1000" for this tool that has been uncovering more Linux kernel bugs the past few weeks.

[5]AMD Posts HDMI 2.1 FRL Patches For Their AMDGPU Linux Driver

It's not complete HDMI 2.1 support but to much surprise hitting the mailing list today were official patches from AMD for implementing HDMI Fixed Rate Link "FRL" support for their kernel graphics driver. HDMI FRL as part of HDMI 2.1+ allows for higher bandwidth to support higher refresh rates and resolutions.

[6]Linux 7.1 To Expose AMD Zen 6's AVX-512 BMM For Guest VMs

A small but important patch that looks like it will be merged for the upcoming Linux 7.1 kernel is for enumerating AVX-512 BMM support for KVM virtualized guests. AVX-512 BMM is one of the exciting ISA additions with next-gen AMD Zen 6 processors.

[7]HDMI 2.1 Display Stream Compression "DSC" Also Ready For AMDGPU Linux Driver

At the beginning of the month was the surprise milestone of AMD posting AMDGPU kernel driver patches for HDMI 2.1 Fixed Rate Link (FRL) support. The HDMI FRL patches have since been updated to also enable HDMI 2.1's Display Stream Compression (DSC) functionality for higher resolutions and higher refresh rates with the open-source AMDGPU driver.

[8]AMD & Valve Deliver Better Kaveri / Kabini APU Experience With Upcoming Linux 7.1

A nice Easter surprise are some last minute updates submitted to DRM-Next of the final planned AMDGPU/AMDKFD feature changes for the upcoming Linux 7.1 feature cycle.

[9]Open-Source "low_latency_layer" Brings Reflex & Anti-Lag 2 To AMD & Intel GPUs On Linux

A new open-source project called low_latency_layer is an implicit Vulkan layer that enables AMD Anti-Lag 2 and NVIDIA Reflex 2 to reportedly work in a hardware-agnostic manner so that AMD and Intel graphics cards can both enjoy Reflex or Anti-Lag 2 working on non-AMD graphics cards as well.

[10]The Linux Kernel Tree About To Hit 40 Million Lines, AMD Driver Above 6 Million Lines

Ahead of the Linux 7.1-rc1 kernel release due out later today for closing the Linux 7.1 merge window, I was curious if all the code removals would lead to a negative change in line count over Linux 7.0. The removals were not enough and Linux 7.1 Git is fast approaching 40 million lines.

[11]Ubuntu 26.04 Allows "sudo apt install rocm" But It's Months Out-Of-Date

Canonical announced last year that in collaboration with AMD they would be bringing the ROCm software libraries into the Ubuntu archive for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. The plan has been to ship AMD ROCm AI/ML and HPC libraries in the Ubuntu archive so it would be as easy as sudo apt install rocm for getting started with AMD's open-source GPU compute stack. With today being the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release day, I decided to revisit the topic.

[12]Longtime Leading AMD Linux GPU Driver Developer Now Working For Valve

It seems that Valve isn't done expanding their open-source Linux graphics driver team and securing top talent for enhancing the Linux GPU drivers for a better gaming experience. One of the foremost leading Mesa developers has left AMD to join Valve.

[13]AMD's Local, Open-Source AI Can Now Easily Interact With Your Gmail

AMD software engineers continue rapidly advancing their open-source software efforts around local AI/LLM use on consumer-class Radeon and Ryzen hardware. AMD GAIA 0.17.6 was released on Thursday with more improvements for local AI processing on Windows, Linux, and even macOS. For those trusting enough in local LLM pipelines to do the right thing, there is even integration now for AMD GAIA to interface with your Gmail account.

[14]Valve Developer Further Improves Old AMD GPUs: HD 7870 XT Finally Working On Linux

Timur Kristóf of Valve's Linux graphics driver team is the one that worked on improving the old AMD Radeon GCN 1.0/1.1 graphics card support by making AMDGPU driver improvements so it could become the default for these Southern Islands and Sea Islands GPUs rather than the legacy Radeon kernel driver. That meant better performance, RADV Vulkan support out-of-the-box, and other benefits. More recently he finished AMDGPU improvements for Kaveri and other GCN 1.1 era APUs. Now Timur's out with some more fixes for helping select GCN 1.0 hardware.

[15]3mdeb Makes Progress Bringing AMD openSIL + Coreboot To Ryzen AM5 Motherboard

In addition to 3mdeb firmware engineers porting AMD openSIL and Coreboot to a Gigabyte EPYC Turin server motherboard, the staff at this firmware consulting company are also porting AMD openSIL and Coreboot to a modern Ryzen AM5 desktop motherboard. They continue making good strides with that quest for the first readily-available Ryzen desktop motherboard with open-source system firmware.

[16]AMD's Lemonade SDK 10.3 Now 10x Smaller By Getting Rid Of Electron

Lemonade as the open-source local AI server backed by AMD and supported across AMD CPUs / GPUs / NPUs on Windows and Linux is out with a big update.

[17]Many Wonderful Improvements Expected For Linux 7.1, Especially For AMD & Intel

With Linux 7.0 expected for release later today, in turn the Linux 7.1 merge window will kick off for the two week period of landing all sorts of exciting new features, changes, and removal of old features from the kernel. Here is a look at some of what is on the table for the Linux 7.1 merge window.

[18]AMD Opens Pre-Orders For The Linux-Friendly Ryzen AI Halo Developer Platform

AMD today announced the opening of pre-orders for their Ryzen AI Halo petite PC powered by AMD Ryzen AI Max+ "Strix Halo" and working with either Microsoft Windows or Linux.

[19]Red Hat ARM Engineer Abandons ARM64 Linux Personal Desktop, Goes Back To AMD Ryzen System

Red Hat senior software engineer Marcin Juszkiewicz of Red Hat's ARM Team had been dogfeeding with an AArch64 Linux desktop being used as his primary, personal system for nearly the past year. But now he shared he has gone back to using his AMD Ryzen desktop instead over AArch64 Linux issues encountered with his Ampere Altra desktop.

[20]AMD P-State Driver Introducing New Features With Linux 7.1

A few Linux kernel releases have passed since there have been any new features to talk about for the AMD P-State driver for CPU frequency scaling / power management with modern AMD Ryzen and EPYC processors. But for the upcoming Linux 7.1 kernel there are some new features now ready for mainline.

[21]AMD's GAIA Now Allows Building Custom AI Agents Via Chat, Becomes "True Desktop App"

In addition to their efforts around the Lemonade SDK itself, AMD software engineers working on their AI initiatives continue to be investing quite a bit into the Lemonade-using GAIA, the project that originally stood for "Generative AI Is Awesome". AMD's GAIA now allows building your own custom AI agents via chatting with GAIA as well as becoming a "true desktop app" so it's easier to deploy across Windows, Linux, and macOS environments.

[22]One Line x86 Change To GCC Compiler Nets +12% Benchmark Win For Modern Intel/AMD CPUs

A one line code change to the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) for its generic x86 tuning is benefiting modern Intel and AMD processors.

And the most popular AMD Linux hardware reviews/benchmarks of Q2:

[23]AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Benchmarks: The Best Desktop Performance For Linux Developers, Creators

Today we can finally share performance benchmarks of the long-rumored AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition processor. This new halo product for the Ryzen 9000 series desktop line-up offers captivating performance for developers frequently compiling code, creators, technical computing workloads for students or hobbyists or those not able to afford a Threadripper / EPYC type workstation, or similar heavy computing use. With the 16 cores / 32 threads and both CCDs having 3D V-Cache, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 offers leading performance among current generation desktop processors.

[24]Intel Arc Pro B70 Open-Source Linux Performance Against NVIDIA RTX & AMD Radeon AI PRO

Last week after receiving the Intel Arc Pro B70 review hardware I began with some benchmarks looking at how the Arc Pro B70 compared to existing Intel GPUs on Linux with their fully open-source driver stack. Today's article features the latest Arc Pro B70 benchmarks under Linux in looking at how the performance and value compares to other NVIDIA RTX and AMD Radeon (AI) PRO workstation graphics cards in the lab.

[25]AMD Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" Enjoys Great Performance Gains With Latest Linux Software

With the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release due out in three weeks, I have been re-testing a number of different devices on this newest Ubuntu release. One of the most significant improvements to note was when running the Framework Desktop with Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" and quantifying the performance gains of the Radeon 8060S Graphics since launch last year. Here's a look at how the Vulkan and OpenGL performance has evolved for the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 since its launch last year in going from Ubuntu 25.04 to Ubuntu 26.04.

[26]Ubuntu 26.04 Delivers Great Performance Improvements For AMD Strix Point, Especially For RDNA 3.5 Graphics

As part of my ongoing testing around the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 release I have been running a lot of benchmarks. After recently showing some nice performance gains for AMD Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" with Ubuntu 26.04, several Phoronix readers inquired about any performance uplift from the more modest but still powerful Strix Point laptops like the popular Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 SKU. Here are benchmarks showing the performance of Ubuntu 26.04 in its near final state compared to Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS with its HWE stack on an ASUS Zenbook S16.

[27]Linux 7.1 Features: New NTFS Driver, New Intel + AMD Hardware, Performance Optimizations & Modernization

The Linux 7.1 development kernel that amounts to nearly 40 million lines has a lot of new features and changes in tow. While Linux 7.1 stable won't be out until mid-June, here is a look at the interesting changes coming with this next stable version of the Linux kernel.

[28]Ubuntu 26.04 Provides More Performance For AMD Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo"

Last week I provided benchmarks to quantify how the AMD Strix Halo graphics performance has evolved since launch one year ago, in today's article is a look at how the Zen 5 CPU performance with the flagship Ryzen AI Max+ 395 has evolved under Linux in the year since these exciting APUs began making their way to high-end laptops and desktops. Complementing the nice Radeon 8060S performance gains are also some nice CPU performance benefits quantified when using Ubuntu 26.04.

[29]Benchmarking The Performance Benefits To Ubuntu 26.10 amd64v3 Packages

With Canonical engineers again experimenting with x86_64-v3 package builds for Ubuntu Linux using an "amd64v3" archive for the current Ubuntu 26.10 development, I decided to see how these latest amd64v3 packages comparing to their conventional Ubuntu 26.10 amd64 packages.

[30]Linux 6.6 LTS To Linux 7.1 Bechmarks: Performance Up 13% On AMD Threadripper Over Three Years

The Linux 7.1 kernel performance has been looking quite good on the various Intel/AMD systems I have tested over the past three weeks. Linux 7.1 does bring some solid improvements over Linux 7.0 prior in different workloads and haven't encountered any worrisome regressions compared to the current Linux 7.0 stable kernel. For those wondering the longer-term picture, here are benchmarks of Linux 7.1 Git compared to recent Linux LTS kernel series going back to 2023 for providing a picture at how the upstream Linux kernel has netted 13% faster performance (geo mean) on the same hardware in less than three years.

[31]Linux Provides Better Performance With The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Over Windows 11

Last month with the new AMD Zen 5 "Dual Edition" 3D V-Cache CPU, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition showed great performance on Linux across a range of workloads. Curious if the operating system was playing into the greater benefit of Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 versus just the workloads tested, this article is looking at both the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 on Microsoft Windows 11 and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Linux across a range of native benchmarks.

[32]Redesigned Thelio Major Elevates System76's All-AMD, Open-Source Linux Workstation

A few weeks back we reviewed the redesigned System76 Thelio Mira with a brand new chassis design and powered by the AMD Ryzen 9000 series. This was an interesting Linux-powered desktop manufactured in Colorado while for those needing a bit more performance, since then the redesigned Thelio Major launched. The new System76 Thelio Major provides an updated Thelio case design like Mira while comes packed with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9000 series and AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 graphics for delivering a very powerful, all-AMD and open-source high-end Linux workstation.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Linux-Q2-2026

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/phoronix-premium

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Patch-Tuesday-May-2026

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Clanker-T1000-AMD-Ryzen-AI-Max

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMDGPU-HDMI-2.1-FRL-Patches

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-KVM-AVX-512-BMM

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/news/HDMI-2.1-DSC-AMDGPU-FRL

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Final-AMDGPU

[9] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Low-Latency-Layer

[10] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Kernel-Nearly-40M

[11] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-26.04-With-ROCm

[12] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Marek-Joins-Valve

[13] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-GAIA-Gmail-Integration

[14] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Harvested-GPUs-Linux

[15] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Coreboot-Progress-MSI-B850

[16] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Lemonade-10.3

[17] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Features-Early-Look

[18] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Ryzen-AI-Halo-Pre-Order

[19] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Red-Hat-ARM-Engineer-Back-Ryzen

[20] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-P-State-Linux-7.1

[21] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-GAIA-True-Desktop-App

[22] https://www.phoronix.com/news/GCC-x86-Generic-Mispredict

[23] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-9950x3d2-linux

[24] https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-arc-pro-b70

[25] https://www.phoronix.com/review/ubuntu-2604-strix-halo

[26] https://www.phoronix.com/review/ubuntu-2604-strix-point

[27] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-71-features-changes

[28] https://www.phoronix.com/review/ubuntu-2604-ryzen-ai-max

[29] https://www.phoronix.com/review/ubuntu-2610-amd64v3

[30] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-66-linux-71

[31] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-9950x3d2-windows-linux

[32] https://www.phoronix.com/review/system76-thelio-major-9980x