It was just earlier this year that Linux developers considered dropping the Apple HFS and HFS+ file-system drivers from the mainline Linux kernel for being unmaintained. But then some new developers stepped up to maintain the drivers and there has been new HFS/HFS+ file-system patches each kernel cycle since. With the now in-development Linux 6.19 kernel there are some nice year-end clean-ups to these file-system drivers.

It was an eventful past month with Valve announcing the new Steam Machine, a lot of new Linux kernel activity, the continued increase of Rust programming language adoption by open-source projects, a lot of fun hardware benchmarks, and more. There were 283 original news articles on Phoronix the past month about Linux/open-source software and hardware plus another 18 featured Linux hardware reviews / multi-page benchmark articles. Here is a look back at the most popular content over the past month.

The good news is that Intel tonight posted a pull request for open-source Gaudi 3 accelerator support for the mainline Linux kernel! The bad news is that it's coming quite late in the product cycle, much later than the former excellent Habana Labs open-source track record, and their hopes of squeezing this code into the Linux 6.19 kernel may be dashed.

Linux 6.18 stable is now available! Linux 6.18 ushers in many new features and changes while also is expected to become this year's Long Term Support "LTS" kernel version.

It's been an exciting weekend for Linux distribution released with new versions of Endeavour OS, CachyOS, Solus and now a new NixOS release.

With the Linux 6.18 kernel likely being released later today, here is a look at some of the features on the table for the next kernel cycle, Linux 6.19. The list is based on changes queued in various "-next" branches ahead of the Linux 6.19 merge window. There's always the possibility of last minute change of plans or objections raised by Linus Torvalds, but this should provide an early look at some of the features more than likely to be merged for Linux 6.19.

Ahead of the FreeBSD 15.0 stable release expected to be announced next week, the FreeBSD project today published their Q3-2025 status report to outline their various development accomplishments from July through September.

With the upcoming Linux 6.19 kernel cycle there are yet more Rust kernel bindings being introduced and other additions to make it possible to write more Linux kernel drivers within the Rust programming language. Among the new Rust additions expected for Linux 6.19 are making it possible to write Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) bus drivers in Rust.

Queued up via the Linux kernel's RDMA development Git tree is "BNG_RE" as the next-generation RoCE driver from Broadcom.

A new SoC vendor and in turn new SoC/platform support is set to premiere in the Linux 6.19 kernel with the initial Black Sesame Technologies C1200 support.

The Genode OS Framework 25.11 release was issued this weekend as the newest update to this original open-source operating system effort built around a micro-kernel design and various novel design approaches.

Making for an exciting holiday weekend night is the Algol 68 programming language front-end "ga68" being merged into the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) codebase. After COBOL language support landed in GCC 15 earlier this year, next year's GCC 16 release is adding support for the half-century old Algol 68 programming language.

In addition to the releases today of updated Endeavour OS and CachyOS, Solus 4.8 is out as the latest version of another desktop Linux distribution popular with enthusiasts.

In addition to the release today of a big refresh to Endeavour OS, CachyOS is out with their latest ISO refresh for this additional Arch Linux powered desktop OS. CachyOS for its November 2025 refresh brings installer improvements, now installs additional packages for media acceleration when capable Intel graphics are detected, handling for Bcachefs with its DKMS module, and other improvements.

With the Linux 6.18 stable kernel release expected to take place tomorrow on 30 November, here is a reminder about some of the new hardware support and other interesting features coming in this next stable version of the Linux kernel.

For those looking to improve their clipboard management experience on the GNOME desktop, Copyous is a new GNOME Shell extension serving as a new clipboard manager.

Endeavour OS is one of the popular desktop Linux distributions built around Arch Linux providing a nice out-of-the-box experience. Since their last ISO refresh back in March there hadn't been much news from the project nor any new ISO releases for this rolling-release distro. But thankfully today they are back in the saddle with a new ISO release, Endeavour OS 2025.11.24 "Ganymede".

With the Linux Vendor Firmware Service serving more than 135 million downloads for Linux users updating their system and device firmware, LVFS has been working to get more hardware vendors to contribute either engineering resources or directly contributing annual dues as sponsors. Framework Computer is now the first one to have executed an agreement under these new sponsorship efforts.

While there have been a number of Intel Linux engineers laid off over roughly the past year, other Linux kernel engineers opting to pursue employment opportunities elsewhere amid the ongoing challenges and restructuring at the company, and shifts in their open-source strategy, there's some good news as we work toward the 2025 holidays. Intel is currently hiring for two more experienced Linux kernel software engineers.

Niri 25.11 is now available as the latest feature release for this Rust-written, scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor.