Microsoft, OpenAI & Others Pony Up $12.5M To Strengthen Open-Source Security

([Free Software] 17 March 12:12 PM EDT Better Open-Source Security)

The Linux Foundation announced today that $12.5 million USD in grants from the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS, GitHub, Google, and Microsoft have been collected to invest in strengthening the security of the open-source software ecosystem.

System76 New Thelio Mira Linux Desktop Running Strong - Powered By AMD Ryzen 9000 Series

([Computers] 17 March 11:30 AM EDT 7 Comments)

Last week we provided a first look at the new and completely-redesigned System76 Thelio Mira desktop chassis. Today System76 is formally announcing the availability of their new Thelio Mira Linux desktop.

Intel Compute Runtime 26.09.37435.1 Brings More Features & Performance Optimizations

([Intel] 17 March 11:19 AM EDT Intel Compute Runtime)

Following this morning's Intel Graphics Compiler 2.30.1 release, the Intel Compute Runtime 26.09.37435.1 is now available for this open-source OpenCL and Level Zero compute stack for Intel graphics hardware on Windows and Linux.

System76 Makes The Best Open-Source Keyboard Even Better

([Peripherals] 17 March 10:30 AM EDT 51 Comments)

If System76 engineers didn't already have enough going on with recently shipping the COSMIC Rust-based desktop environment and also shipping Pop!_OS 24.04 as their in-house Linux distribution plus completely redesigning the Thelio Desktop, they also recently revised their Launch Keyboard. They have made this leading open-source keyboard design even better with the latest iteration of the System76 Launch Keyboard.

Blender 5.1 Released With Raycast Nodes, AMD GPU Ray-Tracing By Default

([Free Software] 17 March 08:31 AM EDT Blender 5.1)

Blender 5.1 is out today with many exciting improvements for this leading open-source 3D modeling software. From AMD GPU hardware ray-tracing being enabled by default at long last to more mature Vulkan support and performance, Blender 5.1 is a great release.

Intel Graphics Compiler 2.30.1 Exposes HF8 Support For Crescent Island

([Intel] 17 March 08:16 AM EDT IGC 2.30.1)

Intel Graphics Compiler 2.30.1 is now available for this LLVM/Clang-based compiler stack used by the Compute Runtime on Linux and under Windows is used both for graphics and compute.

Intel Announces Core Ultra 200HX Plus Along With "Intel Binary Optimization Tool"

([Intel] 17 March 06:18 AM EDT Intel Binary Optimization Tool)

Intel today announced their Core Ultra 200HX Plus series mobile processors as their refresh for Arrow Lake HX. The announcement of the Core Ultra 200HX Plus also mentions a new Intel Binary Optimization Tool software package that has the potential of being quite interesting.

Mesa & AMDGPU Linux Driver See Patches For The Sony PS5 GPU

([AMD] 17 March 06:09 AM EDT PlayStation 5)

Open-source developer Andy Nguyen recently demonstrated porting Linux to the Sony PlayStation 5. The PS5 notably uses a custom AMD SoC and with some patches is able to play nicely with the open-source AMD graphics driver stack.

ARM NEON Accelerated CRC64 Optimization Shows Nearly 6x Improvement

([Linux Kernel] 17 March 05:52 AM EDT ARM NEON CRC64)

A patch posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list provides an ARM64-optimized CRC64-NVMe implementation for nearly a 6x improvement on modern Arm SoCs.

Meta Renewing Investment Into The jemalloc Memory Allocator

([Programming] 16 March 08:41 PM EDT Meta + jemalloc)

The jemalloc memory allocator "malloc" implementation has been popular for HPC and server use down to desktop use in apps like Firefox. Jemalloc has proven over the years to be effective on delivering better performance and scalability while enjoying lower memory usage and less fragmentation than alternative malloc implementations. Meta recently announced that they are renewing their investment into jemalloc.

Canonical Plans To Integrate NVIDIA DOCA-OFED Into The Ubuntu Archive

([NVIDIA] 16 March 08:23 PM EDT NVIDIA DOCA-OFED + Ubuntu)

An interesting Linux detail from today's NVIDIA GTC 2026 kickoff is that Canonical will be integrating NVIDIA's DOCA-OFED software framework into the Ubuntu Linux archive for leveraging the high-speed networking stack for HPC and AI.

GNU C Library Lands x86_64 FMA'ed cosh For A ~35% Improvement

([GNU] 16 March 04:21 PM EDT Faster cosch)

A bit of time has passed since having any exciting performance improvements to report on within the GNU C Library "glibc" but that changed today with another nice x86_64 optimization for modern CPUs.

FFmpeg 8.1 Released With Experimental xHE-AAC MPS212, More Vulkan Acceleration

([Multimedia] 16 March 03:43 PM EDT FFmpeg 8.1)

FFmpeg 8.1 is out today as the newest stable release of this widely-used, open-source multimedia library.

Linux 7.1 sched_ext To Add "SCX_ENQ_IMMED" For Tighter Control When Tasks Land On A CPU

([Linux Kernel] 16 March 02:41 PM EDT sched_ext)

The Linux kernel's extensible scheduler class "sched_ext" to allow for custom CPU scheduling policies as BPF programs continues enabling new functionality. Queued up in the sched_ext development code ahead of next month's Linux 7.1 cycle is the new SCX_ENQ_IMMED capability for enabling tighter control over when tasks land on a CPU.

Fedora Workstation 44 Beta Benchmarks On The AMD Ryzen AI Max Framework Desktop

([Operating Systems] 16 March 12:20 PM EDT 13 Comments)

Since last week's Fedora 44 Beta release I have been testing out this upcoming Fedora Linux version on a few systems in the lab, most notably with the Framework Desktop powered by the powerful AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 "Strix Halo". Fedora Workstation 44 Beta has been looking nice and running stable albeit in some instances seeing lower performance at this point than Fedora Workstation 43 but overall in good shape.

Imagination's Open-Source PowerVR Vulkan Driver Now Plays Nicely With Zink OpenGL

([Mesa] 16 March 11:23 AM EDT PowerVR Vulkan + Zink)

The past several years Imagination Tech has been investing in an upstream and open-source DRM kernel graphics driver as well as a PowerVR Vulkan driver in Mesa. Their Mesa focus has exclusively been on the PowerVR Vulkan driver with the plans all along to use the Zink generic OpenGL-on-Vulkan implementation. With next quarter's Mesa 26.1 release, that goal is being realized with Zink now working nicely atop the PowerVR Vulkan driver for in turn achieving open-source OpenGL support on PowerVR.

Intel Graphics Driver Preps For UHBR DP Tunnels With Linux 7.1

([Intel] 16 March 11:13 AM EDT Linux 7.1)

A round of Intel graphics driver updates were sent today to DRM-Next in staging ahead of April's Linux 7.1 merge window. The changes in this pull aren't too particularly exciting with a lot of code refactoring and other work, but there are preparations made for supporting UHBR DP tunnels.

Lenovo Legion Go HID Drivers Queued Ahead Of Linux 7.1

([Hardware] 16 March 09:12 AM EDT Lenovo Legion Go S Series HID Driver)

The work by Derek Clark on enhancing the Lenovo Legion Go gaming handheld support for Linux continues panning out nicely. The latest driver effort, the creation of the Lenovo Legion Go and Go S Series HID Drivers to help with controller configuration, is set to be introduced in Linux 7.1.

Linux 7.1 To Retire UDP-Lite - Allows For Better Performance With Cleansed Code

([Linux Networking] 16 March 06:31 AM EDT Linux Dropping UDP-Lite)

The upcoming Linux 7.1 kernel cycle is set to retire UDP-Lite support. The UDP-Lite protocol allowed for partial checksums where potentially damaged/corrupted packets are still delivered to the application. Since the Linux 2.6.20 days there has been UDP-Lite support but the kernel is now set to retire it given breakage that has persisted for years and cleaning up the networking code can yield a performance advantage for non-UDP-Lite users.

RADV Driver Lands Another Optimization: "Missing In RADV For A Very Long Time"

([Mesa] 16 March 06:22 AM EDT RADV)

A four year old optimization idea for the RADV driver was scratched off the TODO list last week for next quarter's Mesa 26.1 release.