Native BHI Mitigation Performance Benchmarks On Core i9 14900K Under Linux 6.9

([Intel] 16 April 06:27 AM EDT Spectre Native BHI)

With the new security mitigation for the "Native BHI" Spectre vulnerability affecting even the recent Intel processors, a number of Phoronix readers have been curious about the performance impact of the mitigation. Over the past week I've been running some benchmarks on recent Intel CPUs to better look into any performance implications.

More Bcachefs Fixes & Recovery Improvements Land In Linux 6.9

([Linux Storage] 15 April 04:54 PM EDT Bcachefs Fixes)

The Bcachefs fixes continue to come in on the heavier side for the in-development Linux 6.9 kernel.

AlmaLinux 9.4 Beta Restores Support For Some Hardware Deprecated By RHEL

([Operating Systems] 15 April 12:35 PM EDT AlmaLinux 9.4 Beta)

AlmaLinux 9.4 Beta is out today for this popular community-oriented Linux distribution derived from upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Besides pulling in the RHEL 9.4 Beta changes, AlmaLinux 9.4 also restores hardware support for some devices that was deprecated by upstream RHEL.

openSUSE Leap Micro 6 Reaches Alpha

([SUSE] 15 April 11:35 AM EDT openSUSE Leap Micro 6)

openSUSE's Leap Micro OS that caters to containerized and virtualized workloads by providing a lightweight and reliable foundation is embarking on its next major release. The openSUSE Leap Micro 6.0 operating system is now available in alpha form.

Linus Torvalds Injects Tabs To Thwart Kconfig Parsers Not Correctly Handling Them

([Linux Kernel] 15 April 11:23 AM EDT Linux Kconfig)

Within yesterday's Linux 6.9-rc4 release is an interesting little nugget by Linus Torvalds to battle Kconfig parsers that can't correctly handle tabs but rather just assume spaces for whitespace for this kernel configuration format.

Fedora 41 Aims For More Reproducible Package Builds Thanks To A Rust Program

([Fedora] 15 April 10:26 AM EDT Better Reproducibility)

Continuing a trend worked on in recent Fedora Linux releases and more broadly in the open-source ecosystem at large for securing the software supply chain and ensuring unaltered binaries, Fedora 41 is aiming to ensure more reproducible package builds.

Firefox 125 Adds AV1 Support In Encrypted Media Extensions, Other New Features

([Mozilla] 15 April 09:55 AM EDT Firefox 125)

Ahead of tomorrow's official release announcement, the Firefox 125.0 release binaries have been uploaded to the Mozilla mirror this morning. Firefox 125.0 brings a number of new features and developer additions -- more so than we've seen recently from the monthly Firefox releases.

Servo Driving Modularity To Support Different JavaScript Engines

([Free Software] 15 April 07:10 AM EDT Servo JavaScript Engine Modularity)

The Rust-based Servo web layout engine started by Mozilla that is now stewarded by the Linux Foundation and worked on by several different organizations is eyeing modularity support for its JavaScript integration. Currently Servo is closely tied to Mozilla's SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine but with a modularity push could see other options supported.

RNNoise 0.2 Released With AVX2 Optimizations For Neural Network Noise Suppression

([Multimedia] 15 April 06:44 AM EDT RNNoise 0.2)

Xiph.Org has released RNNoise 0.2 as the recurrent neural network for audio noise reduction. This library leverages a neural network model for enhancing real-time noise suppression.

FEX-Emu 2404 Optimization Can Take Memcpy From 2-3 GB/s To 88 GB/s

([Linux Gaming] 15 April 06:23 AM EDT FEX 2404)

FEX 2404 is now available for this open-source emulator project to allow running x86/x86_64 binaries on AArch64 (ARM 64-bit) LInux systems. FEX has been one of the leading avenues for opening up gaming on AArch64 Linux hardware, even making use of Wine / Proton (Steam Play) for enjoying Windows x86 games within AArch64 Linux confines.

Archinstall 2.8 Further Refines The Easy Arch Linux Installation Experience

([Arch Linux] 15 April 06:32 AM EDT Archinstall 2.8)

Archinstall 2.8 is out today as the latest update to this easy-to-use, text-based Arch Linux installer that makes it much faster deploying this popular Linux distribution.

Vim Lands XDG Base Directory Specification Support

([Free Software] 15 April 06:04 AM EDT Vim + XDG_BASE_DIR)

For fans of the Vim text editor, the latest development code has landed support for the XDG Base Directory "XDG_BASE_DIR" specification.

Linux 6.9-rc4 Brings More Bcachefs Fixes, Native BHI Mitigation

([Linux Kernel] 14 April 05:22 PM EDT Linux 6.9-rc4)

As expected the Linux 6.9-rc4 test kernel is out today as Linux 6.9 works its way toward release by mid-May.

Linux 6.10 To Merge NTSYNC Driver For Emulating Windows NT Synchronization Primitives

([Linux Gaming] 14 April 10:09 AM EDT NTSYNC QUEUED!)

Going through my usual scanning of all the "-next" Git subsystem branches of new code set to be introduced for the next Linux kernel merge window, a very notable addition was just queued up... Linux 6.10 is set to merge the NTSYNC driver for emulating the Microsoft Windows NT synchronization primitives within the kernel for allowing better performance with Valve's Steam Play (Proton) and Wine of Windows games and other apps on Linux.

AMD Prepares More Next-Gen GPU Driver Support For Linux 6.10

([Radeon] 14 April 09:29 AM EDT AMDGPU DRM-Next)

AMD on Saturday submitted a big batch of AMDGPU and AMDKFD kernel graphics driver feature patches ahead of the upcoming Linux 6.10 kernel cycle.

OpenJPH 0.11 Works Toward Low-Latency High-Throughput JPEG-2000 (HTJ2K)

([Free Software] 14 April 08:52 AM EDT JPEG-2000 Open-Source Library)

The OpenJPH project that provides an open-source implementation of JPEG-2000 Part 15 for High Throughput J2K (HTJ2K) / JPH support is working on extending its abilities to handle low-latency High-Throughput JPEG-2000 images and other capabilities.

Proposed "LibGodot" Lets You Embed Godot Game Engine Into Other Apps

([Linux Gaming] 14 April 07:02 AM EDT LibGodot)

Miguel de Icaza who founded GNOME and of Mono / Ximian / Xamarin fame is now talking up the greatness of the Godot game engine and the opportunities that are presented with code proposed for mainlining to introduce "LibGodot" to make it easy to embed Godot scenes into other apps.

OpenRazer 3.8 Brings Support For Newer Razer Devices On Linux

([Linux Gaming] 14 April 06:38 AM EDT OpenRazer 3.8)

OpenRazer 3.8 is out today as the newest update to this collection of community-developed, open-source drivers for Razer devices on Linux. OpenRazer allows for Razer device customization and support under Linux to make full use of these gaming peripherals outside of Windows / macOS. Paired with the likes of the Polychromatic UI, OpenRazer allows a nice Razer hardware experience on Linux.

Linux 6.9-rc4 To Bring New Fixes For x86 Speculation Mitigations

([Linux Security] 14 April 06:21 AM EDT x86/urgent)

The Linux 6.9-rc4 weekly test release is due out later today and ahead of that this week's "x86/urgent" material has been sent in that includes several patches for various x86 speculation mitigation fixes.