Linux NewsWhat is Q4OS, and should you install it?
If you miss the legendary speed and simplicity of Windows XP and early KDE, Q4OS is calling your name.
Benchmarking 18 Years Of Intel Laptop CPUs: Panther Lake As Much As 95x The Speed Of Penryn
For those curious how far Intel laptop CPU performance has evolved over the past nearly two decades, here are power and performance numbers when re-benchmarking all of the Intel-powered laptop CPUs I have on hand that are still operational from Penryn to Panther Lake. A ThinkPad from 2008 with the Core 2 Duo T9300 "Penryn" was still firing up and working with the latest upstream Intel open-source Linux driver support on Ubuntu 26.04 development. On a geo mean basis over the past 18 years from Penryn to Panther Lake, the performance was at 21.5x in over 150 benchmarks. At the most extreme was a 95x difference going from Intel's 45nm Penryn to the 18A Panther Lake.
NXP Posts New Linux Accelerator Driver For Their Neutron NPU
The Linux kernel continues seeing more open-source kernel drivers emerge for supporting different AI accelerators / NPUs. The newest open-source driver breaking cover today is from NXP and is for enabling their Neutron neural processing unit...
Linux 7.1 Looks To Support Extended Attributes On Sockets For New GNOME & systemd Functionality
While the Linux 7.0 feature merge window ended this past weekend and that next kernel release won't debut as stable until April, there are already features out on the horizon that are being positioned for likely merging into the Linux 7.1 kernel assuming no issues appear or objections raised by Linus Torvalds. One of the features already looking like it will be submitted for Linux 7.1 is supporting extended attributes on sockets...
GStreamer 1.28.1 Released with Security Fixes and Stability Improvements
GStreamer 1.28.1 multimedia framework adds a new Whisper-based speech-to-text element while addressing multiple security issues and playback bugs in the stable 1.28 branch.
Fwupd 2.0.20 Brings New Hardware Support
Fwupd/LVFS lead developer Richard Hughes of Red Hat today released Fwupd 2.0.20 with continuing to advance firmware updating on Linux systems...
ZCULL Support For Nouveau + NVK Brings Some Small Performance Gains
Merged yesterday to Mesa 26.1 for the open-source NVIDIA Vulkan driver "NVK" is ZCULL support for more efficient rendering and bringing some small performance gains to this open-source NVIDIA driver stack...
Intel Vulkan Driver Sees Some Minor Optimizations For DX12 Games On Linux
Merged to Mesa 26.1-devel this week is a minor improvement to the Intel "ANV" Vulkan driver providing some slight enhancements to DirectX 12 games running on Linux by way of Valve's Steam Play with VKD3D-Proton...
AlmaLinux Showing Nice Growth With More Than 2M System Update Check-Ins Per Week
AlmaLinux as one of the leading, modern and community-minded alternatives to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) continues enjoying very nice growth. In their 2025 Year In Review they provided a look at their growth with now having more than two million systems per week checking in for software updates...
GStreamer 1.28.1 Adds Whisper-Based Speech-To-Text, AV1 Stateful V4L2 Decoder Support
Building off January's GStreamer 1.28 release with many new features, GStreamer 1.28.1 was released today as a point release bringing various fixes and minor additions to this open-source multimedia framework...
GStreamer 1.28.1 Released with Support for the AV1 Stateful V4L2 Decoder
GStreamer 1.28.1 open-source multimedia framework is now available for download with a new Whisper-based speech-to-text transcription element and many other changes.
Wireshark 4.6.4 Updates Protocol and Capture File Support, Fixes More Bugs
Wireshark 4.6.4 open-source network protocol analyzer is now available for download with updated protocol and capture file support, as well as various bug fixes.
Typhoon weather app blows in with Qt6 rewrite
The forecast is looking Qt for fans of open-source weather app Typhoon, the latest update to which swaps its GTK3 backend for a more modern Qt 6. Most interesting about the change is that it doesn’t have any impact on the UI. Typhoon still shows a colourful, borderless window with transparency, and conveys weather forecast data using stark white text and glyphs. Archisman Panigrahi, Typhoon’s developer, says the Qt port means the app is no longer using the deprecated GTK3 toolkit, but that moving to GTK4 was a non-starter as it ‘does not play well with simultaneously borderless and draggable […]
[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for February 26, 2026
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition: Front: New flags for clone3(); Discord replacements; virtual swap spaces; BPF memory protection keys; PostgreSQL's lessons in attracting contributors; 7.0 merge window; Network Time Security. Briefs: OpenSUSE governance; Firefox 148.0; GNU Awk 5.4.0; GNU Octave 11.1.0; Rust in Ladybird; LibreOffice Online; Weston 15.0; RIP Robert Kaye; Quotes; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
Showtime video player edges closer to Ubuntu debut
Those testing Ubuntu 26.04 daily builds or monthly snapshots may have noticed that Showtime, GNOME’s spiffy new video player, is not preinstalled in the ‘extended selection’, despite being announced as a replacement for Totem. It’s especially confusing since Resources system monitor, announced as a software swap the same time as Showtime, has been on the ISO for a while. Credits need not roll on hope yet, as Showtime could be making its debut soon. Its latest package upload to the resolute archives includes a change that goes some way to explaining why it’s not been present sooner. It reads: “Depend […]