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)

Btrfs Brings Performance Improvements, Shutdown ioctl Stable With Linux 7.1

([Linux Storage] 13 April 05:55 AM EDT Btrfs For Linux 7.1)

Among the early pull requests sent out to Linus Torvalds even before the Linux 7.0 kernel officially released on Sunday were the Btrfs file-system updates. This feature-packed CoW file-system is seeing more performance optimizations for Linux 7.1 as well as its shutdown ioctl feature no longer being experimental and a variety of fixes.



GNU Linux-libre 7.0 Deals With Deblobbing More Drivers & Cleansing DT Files

([GNU] 13 April 05:35 AM EDT GNU Linux-Libre-7.0)

Building off last night's release of the Linux 7.0 kernel is now the GNU Linux-libre 7.0-gnu kernel release for that downstream kernel that removes support for loading non-free-software kernel modules, blocks the loading of loadable microcode/firmware even when it means greatly reduced hardware support, and other sanitization of code in the name of software freedom.



Linux 7.0 Released With New Hardware Support, Optimizations & Self-Healing XFS

([Linux Kernel] 12 April 05:07 PM EDT Linux 7.0)

As expected the stable Linux 7.0 kernel was just released today in marking this next kernel release. The Linux 7.0 milestone comes due to Linus Torvalds' preference of bumping the major version number after hitting X.19 as opposed to any single major change, but in any event there are a lot of great improvements and changes to find with this new kernel version. Linux 7.0 is also what's powering the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release.



Linux Out-Of-Bounds Access Fixed For Unprivileged Users With Specially Crafted Certs

([Linux Security] 12 April 02:45 PM EDT Linux OOB Vulnerability)

An out-of-bounds access within the Linux kernel has existed in mainline the past three years that could be exploited by an unprivileged user submitting a specially crafted certificate to the kernel.



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

([Linux Kernel] 12 April 10:00 AM EDT Linux 7.1 Features)

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.



CMake Pursuing Tighter Integration With Package Managers, Other Improvements

([Programming] 12 April 07:00 AM EDT CMake)

While the Meson build system has been capturing much of the limelight in recent years by open-source projects, the cross-platform CMake build system also shows no signs of slowing down and continues evolving with new features and functionality.



Linux 7.0 Sees Last Minute Fix For Bogus Hardware Errors On AMD Zen 3

([AMD] 12 April 06:23 AM EDT AMD Zen 3 Hardware Errors)

Ahead of the Linux 7.0 stable kernel release expected later today are some last minute pull requests sent out this morning. Notable for those using AMD Zen 3 hardware is addressing some bogus hardware errors that began appearing for some users on recent versions of the Linux kernel.



Trisquel 12.0 Released For Free Software Foundation Endorsed Distribution

([Free Software] 12 April 06:15 AM EDT Trisquel 12)

For those sticking to absolute free software ideals, Trisquel 12.0 was released this weekend for this Free Software Foundation (FSF) approved distribution for only containing free software and foregoing loadable microcode/firmware and running on the Linux-libre kernel even with its reduced scope in hardware support.



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

([AMD] 11 April 03:49 PM EDT Generative AI Is Awesome)

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.



D7VK 1.7 Brings More Improvements For Legacy Direct3D On Vulkan

([Linux Gaming] 11 April 09:31 AM EDT D7VK 1.7)

D7VK as the open-source project that began as a fork of DXVK in adding support for Direct3D 7 atop Vulkan has with time extended its range to also supporting Direct3D 6, 5, and 3 APIs. Out today is D7VK 1.7 in continuing to better support those vintage versions of Microsoft's Direct3D API.



RISC-V BeagleV Ahead Single Board Computer To See Working HDMI With Linux 7.1

([RISC-V] 11 April 07:34 AM EDT BeagleV Ahead HDMI)

The BeagleV Ahead is an open-source RISC-V single board computer S(BC) built around the quad-core TH1520 SoC. With the Linux 7.1 mainline kernel there is HDMI display support coming now that the Device Tree bits have been added.



FSMOUNT_NAMESPACE Feature Coming For Linux 7.1

([Linux Storage] 11 April 07:15 AM EDT FSMOUNT_NAMESPACE)

Among the new VFS features expected to land for the upcoming Linux 7.1 merge window is FSMOUNT_NAMESPACE.



Microsoft Upgrades Its WSL2 Kernel Against Linux 6.18 LTS

([Microsoft] 11 April 07:21 AM EDT Updated Microsoft WSL2 Linux Kernel)

Microsoft on Friday released linux-msft-wsl-6.18.20.1 as the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) kernel updated against the Linux 6.18 LTS series.



Cage 0.3 Released With New Wayland Protocol Support

([Wayland] 11 April 06:38 AM EDT Cage 0.3)

Cage as the Wayland compositor providing a kiosk mode for single, maximized apps is out with a new feature release more than six months after its prior version.



GNOME-Aligned Amberol 2026.1 Music Player Released, Phosh Improves X11 Support

([GNOME] 11 April 06:23 AM EDT GNOME Updates)

A few weeks past the GNOME 50 release and there continues to be a lot of ongoing GNOME app activity worth highlighting.



Support For AMD GFX11.7 "RDNA 4m" Pending For RADV & RadeonSI Drivers

([AMD] 10 April 08:36 PM EDT RDNA 4m)

Back in February we were the first to report on a new AMD "RDNA 4m" target appearing in the AMDGPU LLVM shader compiler. While part of the "RDNA 4" family, it's graphics IP version is GFX 11.7 (GFX1170) that is associated with the RDNA 3 family but with some ISA changes to align it slightly more with the newer RDNA 4 graphics IP. While the RDNA 4m AMDGPU LLVM shader compiler patches have been out for two months, the Mesa patches have only been posted this week for enabling the RADV Vulkan driver and RadeonSI Gallium3D (OpenGL) driver support.



Intel's New Shader Compiler "Jay" Merged For Mesa 26.1

([Intel] 10 April 04:11 PM EDT Intel Jay Compiler)

It was just a few days ago that Jay was publicly posted as the new shader compiler in-development for Intel GPUs on Linux for both their ANV Vulkan and Iris Gallium3D drivers. While still very experimental, that initial Jay compiler code was merged today for Mesa 26.1-devel.



VMUFAT File-System Driver Proposed For The Linux Kernel

([Linux Storage] 10 April 12:57 PM EDT VMUFAT)

The newest Linux file-system driver proposed for the kernel is... VMUFAT.



Linux 7.0 Ready For Release With Many Exciting Changes

([Linux Kernel] 10 April 12:02 PM EDT Linux 7.0 Features)

The Linux 7.0 kernel is gearing up for its stable release and should be out this coming Sunday, 12 April, barring any major last minute issues.



Firefox 149 vs. Chrome 147 Web Browser Performance On Linux

([Software] 10 April 10:20 AM EDT 62 Comments)

It has been a while since featuring a showdown of the Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers on Linux. With some fresh benchmarks being overdue plus the new JetStream 3 browser benchmark having been announced last week, here is some fresh data for how these two dominant web browsers are competing on the modern Linux desktop from an Intel Panther Lake system running Ubuntu 26.04.



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