Linux NewsRust 1.98 Adds Algebraic Floating-Point Methods Akin To "-ffast-math"
Rust 1.98 released today and is headlined the debut of new algebraic floating-point methods...
KMSCON 10.0.2 Brings asciicast Playback Support, Bug Fixes
KMSCON 10.0.2 debuted today as the latest update to this leading user-space terminal emulator for Linux systems. KMSCON is built around Linux's KMS/DRM interfaces and the most viable alternative to date for in-kernel VTs...
KDE Software Now Has Stable Btrfs Snapshot Integration With KIO-Snapshot 1.0
With today's release of KIO-Snapshot, KDE software now has stable integration of Btrfs file-system snapshots...
Intel Hyper Threading Performance On The Xeon 678X "Granite Rapids-WS"
With the Intel Xeon 678X "Granite Rapids WS" processor that I have been recently testing within the HP Z4 G6i workstation, there are 48 cores plus with Hyper Threading is a total of 96 threads for this high-end workstation processor with a 300 Watt TDP. For those curious about the performance impact of HT/SMT on this Intel Xeon 600 series workstation processor, here are some comparison benchmarks.
FSCRYPT Sees Cleanup With Linux 7.3 To Open Door For More Features Like Btrfs Encryption
FSCRYPT is the Linux file-system encryption framework for supporting per-directory, transparent encryption. FSCRYPT so far is used by the likes of EXT4, F2FS, and CephFS. For Linux 7.3 there is an important clean-up to the FSCRYPT code to simplify it while also opening the door for new features moving forward into future kernel versions...
Linux Driver Posted For The PreSonus Quantum 2626: A ~$700 Thunderbolt Audio Interface
The PreSonus Quantum 2626 is a high-end, Thunderbolt 3 based audio interface. PreSonus just maintains Windows and macOS drivers for this high-end audio interface while now an open-source Linux driver has been posted after being independently developed via reverse engineering...
RPM 6.1 Released With Clang Build Fixes, New Release Model
RPM 6.1 is out today as the newest feature release for this package management system. With RPM 6.1 comes a number of features and improvements as well as a new release model...
Mesa 26.2.1 Released With Dozens Of Fixes
For those preferring the tradition of waiting for the first point release of a new Mesa feature release before upgrading, Mesa 26.2.1 is available today with a healthy round of bug fixing...
Linux 7.3 Cleans Up The Code For Disabling Of Legacy 32-bit Time Support
The Linux kernel has supported the CONFIG_COMPAT_32BIT_TIME Kconfig build time option for optionally disabling of legacy 32-bit time system call support. This is intended to disable the code that uses a 32-bit integer for time that is thus not Year 2038 safe, but at the cost of breaking compatibility for legacy 32-bit applications. Even if building without Linux 32-bit time support, it turns out some 32-bit time code persisted but that is now being fixed with Linux 7.3...
KDE Gear 26.08 Delivers The Latest KDE App Experience
KDE Gear 26.08 was released today to deliver the latest collection of KDE application updates...
X.Org Server 26.1 RC1 Prepares For First Feature Release In Five Years
Following today's release of XWayland 26.1 RC1, X.Org Server 26.1 RC1 was tagged. This xorg-server 26.1 release is aiming to become the first major feature release in five years, succeeding the xorg-server 21.1 series...
EXT4 Preps More Performance Improvements For Linux 7.3
In addition to the IOmap improvements helping EXT4 performance in Linux 7.3, the main EXT4 feature pull request has now been submitted for this next kernel version. That pull is set to land yet more performance optimizations for EXT4...
Two Very Exciting Memory Management Optimizations Going Into Linux 7.3
Andrew Morton on Tuesday sent out all of the memory management "MM" updates for the Linux 7.3 merge window. The MM pull was particularly heavy as he noted 1,250 "added-to-MM" emails were sent out this cycle compared to 920 the prior cycle. With a lot of patch churn, he also turned to Google's Gemini AI for writing his patch summaries. In going through the very verbose AI-generated summary, there are two patch series that get me excited on the performance front with Linux 7.3...
Go Language 1.27 Adds Generic Methods, Struct Improvement & More SIMD
Go 1.27 was released today as the newest version of this programming language from Google's Go team...
Btrfs Ready With More Performance Improvements For Linux 7.3: Some ~3x To ~5x Wins
David Sterba of SUSE sent in the Btrfs file-system feature updates today that target the Linux 7.3 merge window. Among other changes are more performance improvements for this next version of the Linux kernel...