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)

Intel IGC 2.38.2 Brings Latest Round Of Graphics Compiler Improvements

([Intel] 14 July 08:50 AM EDT Intel Graphics Compiler 2.38.2)

Ahead of the next Intel Compute Runtime release, IGC 2.38.2 was released today as the newest feature update to this open-source graphics compiler used by Intel iGPU/dGPU hardware on both Windows and Linux.


Intel Vulkan Driver Now Supports H.265 10-bit Video Encoding

([Intel] 14 July 07:58 AM EDT Intel Vulkan Video + 10-bit H.265)

Hyunjun Ko with Igalia continues advancing the Vulkan Video capabilities of the Intel open-source "ANV" Vulkan driver for Linux systems.


Linux Dealing With Apple's Wild Mess Of Sensors On Apple Silicon SoCs

([Apple] 14 July 06:31 AM EDT Hodgepodge Sensors)

While there has been the Apple System Management Controller "SMC" hardware monitoring driver with the intent on exposing battery/power stats as well as thermal and more for Apple Silicon SoCs on Linux, it hasn't yet been working out properly on the mainline kernel. Between missing Device Tree nodes to the hodgepodge mess of sensors between the different Apple M-Series SoCs, it's a mess.


Haiku Merges NVMM For Initial Virtualization Support, But It Doesn't Yet Fully Work

([Operating Systems] 14 July 06:11 AM EDT Haiku + NVMM)

The BeOS-inspired Haiku open-source operating system project has published their June 2026 status report. In the past month the developers merged their NVMM VM monitor support, hardware driver improvements, and progressed toward the upcoming Haiku sixth beta release.


"Light" GRUB Alternative Package For Confidential Computing Approved For Fedora 45

([Fedora] 14 July 05:51 AM EDT GRUB + Confidential Computing)

A month ago there was a change proposal raised for offering a "light" version of the GRUB2 bootloader for use in confidential computing environments. While there were some differing views on the matter for this alternative, stripped-down GRUB package as opposed to just using other bootloaders like systemd-boot, ultimately, the proposal is now approved.


Weston 16.0 Compositor Released With HDR Improvements, Vulkan Fixes

([Wayland] 14 July 05:40 AM EDT Weston 16)

Overnight the Weston 16.0 release occurred as the latest milestone for this reference Wayland compositor.


New Linux Patches Aim To Better Handle Multiple Swap Devices

([Linux Kernel] 13 July 08:38 PM EDT Managing Multiple Swap Devices)

For those having Linux systems with multiple swap devices, such as for swap tiering or layered swap handling, a set of patches posted today for the Linux kernel are looking to improve the situation.


Graviton5 Outperforming Intel Xeon Granite Rapids But Falls Short Of AMD EPYC Turin

([Processors] 13 July 12:53 PM EDT 9 Comments)

Following the recent GA of the AWS M9g series as the first instances powered by the new Graviton5 CPUs, I recently ran benchmarks looking at Graviton4 vs. Graviton5 CPU performance. There was very nice generational gains for the new AWS Graviton processors with the shift from Arm Neoverse-V2 to Neoverse-V3 cores and from DDR5-5600 to DDR5-8800 memory, among other improvements. For those wondering how the Graviton5 ARM server processors compare to AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon, here are some additional comparison data points from the Amazon EC2 cloud.


FreeBSD Desktop Installer Option Working Through NVIDIA Driver Handling, Licensing

([BSD] 13 July 09:21 AM EDT FreeBSD Desktop Install)

Alfonso Siciliano, who has been one of the FreeBSD developers leading the effort on adding a KDE-based desktop option to the FreeBSD installer, provided an update on recent work around adding integrating this desktop option.


GNOME OS Creating "Test Center" As Its Take On Apple TestFlight For Experiment Software

([GNOME] 13 July 06:39 AM EDT GNOME OS Test Center)

GNOME developers working on GNOME OS have received funding from Germany's Prototype Fund to work on creating the GNOME OS "Developer Tool Suite" or also tentatively called their "Test Center" to help in testing experimental applications/libraries in a modern Linux computing world with systemd-sysext, Buildstream, and other newer tech.


Reworked System Call Entry Handling Slated For Linux 7.3

([Linux Kernel] 13 July 06:17 AM EDT Big Rework)

Stemming from looking at a proposed Linux kernel patch to alter the Linux kernel's system call number handling, veteran Linux kernel developer Thomas Gleixner went down a rabbit hole of the kernel's system call entry handling to make a number of clean-ups and improvements to the code. That rework to the system call entry handling is now expected to land for the Linux 7.3 kernel cycle.


Raspberry Pi 5 IOMMU Driver Being Worked On For The Mainline Linux Kernel

([Raspberry Pi] 13 July 06:01 AM EDT Raspberry Pi 5 IOMMU)

While the Raspberry Pi 5 is already over two and a half years old, one of the missing elements of its support from the mainline Linux kernel has been the IOMMU driver. We are now seeing Raspberry Pi's downstream IOMMU driver being adapted for mainline with hopes of getting it into the upstream kernel.


Cloud Hypervisor 53 Released With Offloaded Snapshot/Restore Daemon

([Virtualization] 13 July 05:48 AM EDT Cloud Hypervisor 53.0)

Cloud Hypervisor 53.0 is now available for this open-source, Rust-based VMM focused on cloud workloads and modern security needs. Originally started at Intel, Cloud Hypervisor continues seeing new development these days by Microsoft, Meta, Arm, and other organizations.


Linux 7.2-rc3 Released: Close To The "New Normal"

([Linux Kernel] 12 July 05:59 PM EDT Linux 7.2-rc3)

Linux 7.2-rc3 is now available for testing in working toward the stable Linux 7.2 kernel version coming up in August.


Linux 7.2 Enabling UltraRISC RISC-V Support In The Default Kernel Build

([RISC-V] 12 July 04:25 PM EDT UltraRISC RISC-V)

Similar to Linux 7.2 enabling Eswin SoC support by default in the RISC-V "defconfig" kernel build, UltraRISC RISC-V coverage is also now being enabled by default for RISC-V kernel builds in Linux 7.2.


HFI BIOS Aims To Provide A POST-Like Power On Screen & BIOS Setup Utility For RISC-V

([Free Software] 12 July 06:50 AM EDT Harmonic Firmware Initiative)

The Harmonic Firmware Initiative "HFI" is trying to provide a generic, standardized power-on firmware experience for RISC-V boards. Akin to the x86 world with having immediate graphics card initialization to provide a display while the system is booting and also having a BIOS setup utility for system configuration, HFI is trying to do the same for the RISC-V world.


Linux 7.2-rc3 Bringing Fixes For The SEGA Dreamcast Drivers In 2026

([Hardware] 12 July 06:31 AM EDT SEGA Dreamcast + Linux)

It wasn't on my bingo card for the week but merged to Git ahead of today's Linux 7.2-rc3 kernel release are a number of fixes for the SEGA Dreamcast drivers.


Realtek RTL8723BS WiFi Linux Driver Hardened Against Malicious WiFi Access Points

([Linux Networking] 12 July 06:15 AM EDT Realtek RTL8723BS)

The staging driver fixes that were sent out this week ahead of the Linux 7.2-rc3 release is predominantly made up of hardening the Realtek RTL8723BS WiFi driver. In particular, a number of fixes for addressing out-of-bounds behavior when connecting to "bad" WiFi hosts.


Debian 13.6 Released To Ship All The Latest Security Fixes, Reverts GeoIP Database

([Debian] 11 July 10:31 AM EDT Debian 13.6)

Debian 13.6 is out today as the newest point release of Debian Trixie to ship the latest security fixes and other maintenance updates.


Linux 7.2-rc3 Bringing Display Detection Improvement To Help Some Multi-GPU Systems

([Linux Kernel] 11 July 09:20 AM EDT Multi-GPU Display Detect)

Sent out today was this week's round of x86 (x86_64) fixes ahead of the Linux 7.2-rc3 kernel test candidate due out on Sunday.


More

I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the
country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which
I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving
are worth considering, to wit:

[173.15b]:
"When competing for a section of road or a parking space, remember
that the vehicle in need of the most body work has the right-of-way."

[141.2a]:
"Although it is altogether possible to fit a 6' car into a 6'
parking space, it is hardly ever possible to fit a 6' car into
a 5' parking space."

[105.31]:
"Teenage drivers believe that they are immortal, and drive accordingly.
Nevertheless, you should avoid the temptation to prove them wrong."