For those relying on OpenVPN for your virtual private networking (VPN) needs, one of the most exciting innovations in recent times besides transitioning to the WireGuard alternative is the OpenVPN DCO kernel driver. This "data channel offload" driver has the potential to provide significant performance advantages over the current OpenVPN performance.

Earlier this week IBM announced the z17 mainframes powered by Tellum I processors. But months prior we've seen IBM patches for an "arch15" target for SystemZ within the open-source compilers that we expected was z17. IBM has now confirmed such and has begun updating the open-source compilers to acknowledge this z17 compiler support.

With being just one week past the Linux 6.15 merge window, a lot of fixes have been flowing into the mainline tree as is usual for the early stages of the kernel cycle. Merged overnight were a number of Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) fixes that include some notable alterations for the Intel and AMD Radeon kernel graphics drivers.

The Haiku OS open-source operating system inspired by BeOS has issued their newest monthly development report.

Merged today was this week's batch of x86 fixes ahead of the Linux 6.15-rc2 release on Sunday. Notable with these x86 fixes are landing several patches to fix and clean-up the Spectre Return Stack Buffer "RSB" mitigation handling as well as introducing a new document to clarify the overall state and current mitigations.

Well here is a pleasant surprise, especially for those that recall the days long ago where Fedora Linux releases tend to be notoriously delayed... Fedora 42 is cleared for releasing next week Tuesday, 15 April, in meeting its "early target" release date.

Merged to the Intel Xe kernel graphics driver for the current Linux 6.15 kernel cycle is EU Stall Sampling support as a new feature found with Xe2 Lunar Lake and Battlemage graphics. EU Stall Sampling is used for exposing information/reasons why execution units are stalled for helping to debug performance issues. Now that the kernel support is ready to go with Linux 6.15, merged to the Mesa 25.1 development code is the user-space support for this performance debugging feature.

In addition to the upcoming GCC 15 stable compiler release bringing a COBOL language front-end, much better Rust support, revamped AVX10 support, and other shiny new language features and hardware supports, there are also some more fundamental usability improvements for developers.

For those that are curious about the Linux support and performance of the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 laptop processor, I've recently been testing it out within a Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 (AMD) laptop. Up today are benchmarks of the Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 within the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 up against an assortment of other recent Intel and AMD laptops all while running the near-final state of Ubuntu 25.04.

While the Linux 6.15 merge window only ended last weekend, new feature material is beginning to queue for DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 6.16 kernel cycle kicking off in late May or early June. A few notable patches so far have been submitted by way of DRM-Misc-Next.

Google engineers earlier this year detailed an AMD CPU microcode signature verification vulnerability. For local users with administration/root privileges, it could lead to loading malicious CPU microcode patches on the system. Initially AMD Zen 1 through Zen 4 were affected but the Google security engineers since discovered Zen 5 also could be impacted. BIOS updates are rolling out to address this signature verification issue while the Linux kernel is also being patched for microcode protections on Zen 5.

A change merged yesterday to the Intel Mesa graphics driver code lessens a restriction around the amount of system memory (RAM) that can be used by processes for the Vulkan system heap. This will allow more games/apps to work with the Intel integrated graphics that previously exceeded the driver-enforced limits but at the risk of running into broader out-of-memory behavior if under too much memory pressure.

While there are efforts underway to effectively kill the Linux virtual terminal "VT" console by punting the functionality off to user-space, it's not dead yet and a new patch series out on Wednesday aims to enhance the modern Unicode handling by the Linux VT.

Gzip 1.14 released earlier today as the first new release to this widely-used file compression format on Linux systems and other platforms.

Mesa's Radeon Vulkan driver "RADV" is now exposing its emulated ray-tracing support by default for older AMD Radeon GPUs even without any form of hardware-accelerated ray-tracing in order to run the new Indiana Jones game. It turns out even the emulated RT mode is fast enough to allow various older AMD Radeon graphics cards to be playable with this title.

Long before the likes of DXVK for Direct3D APIs implemented atop Vulkan, and even before the Vulkan API was conceived, there's been Gallium Nine as a Direct3D 9 state tracker implementation for Gallium3D. Gallium Nine showed promise in its early days for speeding up D3D9 Windows games running atop Wine on Linux. But with DXVK working out better these days and Gallium Nine no longer being maintained in recent times, it's now deprecated and set for removal later this year.

Submitted today via DRM-Misc-Next for queuing in DRM-Next until the Linux 6.16 merge window in June is the Asahi driver user-space API "UAPI" header. This is the user-space API intended for the Asahi kernel graphics driver for supporting the Apple M-Series graphics hardware under Linux. But due to being written in the Rust programming language and various kernel abstractions not yet ready among other obstacles, only the user-space API header is set to be added and not yet introducing the actual Direct Rendering Manager driver.

Last year TUXEDO Computers shared that they were developing an ARM Linux notebook powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite. They hoped to have the Snapdragon X Elite Linux laptop shipping by Christmas 2024, but that didn't pan out. TUXEDO Computers has now provided a status update regarding this ARM Linux notebook effort.

Framework Computer has been working on bringing the Framework 12 to market as a new, smaller and convertible laptop while retaining the upgradeable aspects that users have come to love from the company. Today the company announced the pre-orders are open and the first Framework Laptop 12 devices will be shipping in June.

Not to be confused with the AMDXDNA accelerator driver that was mainlined just with the Linux 6.14 kernel, AMD Linux engineers are now working on "AMDPK" as a new accelerator driver for their upcoming PKI Accelerator engines.