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)

Xorgproto 2025.1 Released To Recognize Newer Keyboard Keys

([X.Org] 19 December 09:11 AM EST xorgproto 2025.1)

For X.Org Server users there is a new release of xorgproto for the holidays. Xorgproto as the set of headers and specifications for the X11 core protocols and extensions is out with its first new release since March 2024.



FUSE 3.18 Released With FUSE-Over-IO-uring, Statx Support

([Linux Storage] 19 December 08:21 AM EST File-Systems In User-Space)

Linux creator Linus Torvalds previously referred to file-systems in user-space as for toys and misguided people. But FUSE has shown a lot of interesting use-cases over the years and has grown more capable in the decade since Torvalds' prior comments. Out today is FUSE 3.18 as the latest release for the FUSE library.



Intel's Linux NPU User-Space Driver Adds Panther Lake Support

([Intel] 19 December 08:10 AM EST Intel Panther Lake NPU)

Since late 2024 Intel has been working on 5th Gen NPU support for their Linux IVPU driver. That 5th Gen NPU support for Intel Core Ultra "Panther Lake" SoCs was upstreamed back in Linux 6.13. Now today the Intel Linux NPU user-space driver has seen its official support added for Panther Lake.



2025 Brought "Transformative Changes" For FreeBSD On Laptops

([BSD] 19 December 06:30 AM EST FreeBSD On Laptops)

As we have been covering over the past year, major investments have been made to better the outlook for running FreeBSD on laptop hardware. From WiFi driver improvements to enhancing suspend/resume, power management, graphics drivers, and other features, it's been a big undertaking to make FreeBSD work better on laptops. The FreeBSD Foundation calls 2025 as having brought "transformative changes" for the FreeBSD laptop experience.



Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Plans Confirmed For Linux 6.20 / Linux 7.0

([Ubuntu] 19 December 06:12 AM EST Ubuntu 26.04 Kernel Plans)

Canonical confirmed their Linux kernel plans today for the Ubuntu 26.04 Long Term Support (LTS) release due out in April.



Cloud Hypervisor 50 Released With QCOW2 Compression, Performance Improvements

([Virtualization] 19 December 05:59 AM EST Cloud Hypervisor 50.0)

Cloud Hypervisor 50.0 is out today for this cloud-minded, security-focused and Rust-based hypervisor. Cloud Hypervsior began as an open-source Intel project while in more recent times has shifted to being largely maintained by Microsoft, Crusoe, Cyberus Tech, Rivos, and others.



Mageia 10 Planning For April Release While Still Maintaining 32-bit Support

([Operating Systems] 19 December 05:51 AM EST Mageia 10)

The Mageia development team recently met to solidify their plans for releasing Mageia 10 as the next major release of this LInux distribution with its roots that trace back to the days of Mandrake Linux.



Vulkan 1.4.337 Debuts With Long Vector & 3D ASTC Compression Extensions

([Vulkan] 19 December 01:00 AM EST Vulkan 1.4.337)

Vulkan 1.4.337 released a short time ago as what could be the last Vulkan API spec update of 2025 depending upon how much time the working group takes off or not around the holidays. In any case, it's a nice holiday treat with the new VK_EXT_texture_compression_astc_3d and VK_EXT_shader_long_vector extensions.



Cryptsetup 2.8.2 Released With BitLocker Clear Key Support

([Linux Storage] 19 December 12:00 AM EST cryptsetup 2.8.2)

Cryptsetup 2.8.2 released on Thursday for this open-source utility used for setting up disk encryption with dm-crypt on Linux systems, including for LUKS volumes, TrueCrypt, BitLocker, and other formats.



OpenZFS 2.4 Released With Faster Encryption Performance, Many Other Improvements

([Linux Storage] 18 December 08:02 PM EST OpenZFS 2.4)

OpenZFS 2.4 is out as stable in time for the holidays! The big OpenZFS 2.4 feature release is now available for FreeBSD and Linux systems to continue advancing the open-source ZFS file-system support.



Linux Foundation Expects To Break $300M In Revenue This Year

([Linux Events] 18 December 05:39 PM EST $310M)

The Linux Foundation today published their 2025 Annual Report where they offer a glimpse into the finances of the organization for this year.



Kdenlive 25.12 Video Editor Brings New Docking System, Menu Restructuring

([Multimedia] 18 December 03:46 PM EST Kdenlive 25.12)

In addition to the release this week of OpenShot 3.4, released today is a major update to another popular open-source video editing application: Kdenlive. The Kdenlive 25.12 release brings many improvements to help with editing of any year-end / holiday videos.



Newer RISC-V CPUs Vulnerable To Spectre V1 - Linux Mitigation Patches Posted

([RISC-V] 18 December 03:56 PM EST Spectre V1 For RISC-V)

Spectre V1 mitigations in the Linux kernel are coming for RISC-V with newer RISC-V core designs being vulnerable to Spectre Variant One style attacks.



Mesa NVK Driver Merges Compression Support For Better Performance

([Nouveau] 18 December 01:20 PM EST Linux 6.19 + Mesa 26.0 = Better Perf)

Merged today to the Mesa 26.0-devel code for the open-source NVIDIA "NVK" Vulkan driver is compression support for helping to deliver better performance.



NVIDIA 590.48.01 Linux Driver Brings R590 Series To Stable

([NVIDIA] 18 December 12:09 PM EST NVIDIA 590.48.01)

NVIDIA has promoted their R590 driver series to stable with the release today of the NVIDIA 590.48.01 Linux driver as their latest new feature branch version.



AMD Radeon RX 9000 Series vs. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Open-Source Linux Performance For 2025

([Graphics Cards] 18 December 03:50 PM EST 32 Comments)

In the past few weeks on Phoronix we have explored a fresh look at the open-source Nouveau/NVK performance compared to the NVIDIA 580 packaged Linux driver as well as a multi-generation Nouveau vs. NVIDIA comparison from the GeForce GTX 980 to RTX 5080 since the forthcoming NVIDIA R590 driver series is ending the GTX 900/1000 series support. Today's article provides another round of fresh open-source NVIDIA Linuc graphics performance data using the upstream open-source Nouveau and Mesa NVK/Zink drivers compared not only to the current NVIDIA packaged driver but also competitively for how the GeForce RTX 50 line-up compares to the current AMD Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards.



Thunderbird Expanding Microsoft Exchange & Protocol Support For 2026

([Free Software] 18 December 09:41 AM EST Thunderbird Mail Client)

Beyond the Firefox browser to see more changes under its new CEO, the Thunderbird mail client is also expected to see some big changes in the new year.



Qt 6.11 Beta Released With New Canvas Painter, OpenAPI & TaskTree Modules

([Qt] 18 December 09:20 AM EST Qt 6.11 Beta 1)

Qt 6.11 Beta 1 is out on-schedule with the code having entered its feature freeze and code branching earlier this month. This toolkit is working toward the stable Qt 6.11 stable debut in March.



Intel ISPC 1.29 Drops Gen9 GPU Targets, Add New Optimizations & Experimental RISC-V

([Intel] 18 December 08:26 AM EST Intel ISPC 1.29)

Intel ISPC 1.29 released on Wednesday as the newest feature update to this Implicit SPMD Program Compiler as a C variant able to target Intel hardware from their CPUs to GPUs for SIMD programming.



AMD Awarding Ryzen AI Max+ "Strix Halo" Laptops To Those Fixing ROCm Bugs

([Radeon] 18 December 06:11 AM EST Strix Halo Laptops For ROCm Bug Fixes)

AMD Ryzen AI Max+ "Strix Halo" is beautifully awesome. Probably my favorite hardware of 2025 whether it's in desktop form with the likes of the Framework Desktop or for very powerful laptops between the Zen 5 CPU cores and very capable Radeon 8060S Graphics within devices like the HP ZBook Ultra G1a. If you are interested by Strix Halo too and looking for a way to obtain one without the high price, AMD is running a holiday special of those contributing PyTorch and vLLM ROCm bug fixes for Strix Halo laptops.



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