Linux 6.15 Graphics Drivers: NOVA Core, Apple Touch Bar, Lots For AMD + Intel GPUs
The big pull request was sent out today of the numerous Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) updates for the in-development Linux 6.15 kernel. There are new drivers, a lot as usual for the AMD Radeon and Intel kernel graphics drivers, and a lot of other changes throughout for advancing these open-source kernel graphics/display drivers...
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-DRM-Graphics-Drivers
Zstd 1.5.7 Lands In Linux 6.15 For Better Performance & APIs For Intel QAT Acceleration
Linux 6.15 keeps getting more exciting... The big Zstd update has landed! The in-kernel Zstandard compression code is finally re-based against the newer upstream state that brings better performance as well as new APIs for allowing Intel QAT acceleration by Intel hardware offering QuickAssist Technology. This Zstd code is relied upon by Btrfs transparent file-system compression and other in-kernel users for compression/decompression...
Linux 6.15 To Gain New Option For Those Building The Kernel Without Virtual Terminal
The printk changes submitted for the Linux 6.15 kernel introduce a new "NULL_TTY_DEFAULT_CONSOLE" Kconfig build-time option for allowing the null TTY to be the default for those building the Linux kernel without virtual terminal (VT) support...
XZ 5.8 Debuts As First Major Feature Release Since The Backdoor Disaster
XZ 5.8 is out today as the first notable feature release since last year's malicious backdoor in XZ 5.6 inserted by a then-co-maintainer of the project. XZ 5.6.2 was out last May while XZ 5.8.0 is now stable today for bringing new features to this lossless data compressor project...
Btrfs Adding Fast/Realtime Zstd Compression & Other Performance Optimizations
David Sterba of SUSE sent in all of the Btrfs file-system updates today for the now-open Linux 6.15 kernel merge window. There are some new performance optimizations, new and faster Zstd compression level options, and other changes slated to be included for this CoW file-system in Linux 6.15...
EROFS Being Extended To Handle Massive Amounts Of Data For AI Model Training
The EROFS open-source, read-only Linux file-system is set to be extended with the upcoming Linux 6.15 kernel cycle to support massive amounts of data to support AI model training...
KDE KWin Lands FIFO v1 Wayland Support, GNOME 48 Squeezed In XDG Toplevel Drag v1
There is some new Wayland protocol support activity this week worth mentioning for both the KDE Plasma and GNOME desktops...
Microsoft Proposes "Hornet" Security Module For The Linux Kernel
Microsoft's newest open-source contribution to the Linux kernel being proposed is... Hornet, a Linux security module (LSM) for providing signature verification of eBPF programs...
AMD Announces Open-Source "GAIA" For GenAI But Currently Windows-Only
AMD on Thursday announced GAIA for "Generative AI Is Awesome" as a means of easily running local large language models (LLMs) on Ryzen AI PCs with the XDNA NPU. GAIA provides an easy software demonstration for Ryzen AI capabilities but sadly for the moment is limited to Microsoft Windows platforms...
Beyond The ROCm Software, AMD Has Been Making Great Strides In Documentation & Robust Containers
AMD recently allowed me some time with their AMD Accelerator Cloud (AAC) leveraging multiple Instinct MI300X accelerators. During this brief opportunity to try out their latest software advancements with the Instinct MI300X and the ROCm compute stack, one of the most striking takeaways was their documentation improvements compared to previous forays into ROCm+Instinct compute. In addition, AMD is now offering more robust container options for easier Instinct compute deployments with more software options available and being more regularly updated.
https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-rocm-docs-containers-2025
Intel AVX10 Drops Optional 512-bit: No AVX10 256-bit Only E-Cores In The Future
Intel updated their AVX10 whitepaper and associated open-source compiler patches around this next Advanced Vector Extensions standard... While AVX10 had intended to allow either 256-bit or 612-bit modes depending upon processor capabilities, Intel has dropped the 256-bit-only approach and going for 512-bit everywhere. Thus it would seem to indicate that Intel E cores of the future will properly support AVX 512-bit operation!..
DRM Sync Object Optimizations Show Minor Benefit On The Steam Deck
Tvrtko Ursulin of Igalia has been working on some optimizations to the DRM synchronization object "drm_syncobj" code for slightly more efficient use on the CPU side...
https://www.phoronix.com/news/DRM-Sync-Obj-Optimizations-Deck
FFmpeg Lands Vulkan Improvements With Initial FFV1 Vulkan Decoder
FFmpeg developer Lynne has landed a number of Vulkan Video improvements today into FFmpeg Git. In addition, there is now an FFV1 Vulkan-based decoder...
OpenRazer 3.10.1 Adds Support For A Few More Razer Devices On Linux
OpenRazer 3.10 released last month with support for new Razer devices and a wealth of other enhancements for these open-source, community-developed Razer kernel drivers for Linux. Out today is OpenRazer 3.10.1 with some fixes as well as supporting a few more Razer products...
Mir 2.20 Brings Focus Stealing Prevention, Workaround/Quirk Fixes
Mir 2.20 is out today as the newest version of this Canonical-developed Wayland compositor and set of libraries for developing Wayland-based shells...
Vulkan Video Continues Making Inroads, VP9 Decode Planned For This Year
At the Vulkanised 2025 conference a few weeks back in Cambridge (UK) there were a few presentations concerning Vulkan Video for this cross-vendor, cross-platform video encode/decode interface...
Intel Xe Driver Introducing SVM, EU Stall Sampling & Other New Features For Linux 6.15
Intel engineers today sent out their final drm-xe-next feature pull request to DRM-Next of the remaining features they are ready to land for the modern Intel Xe kernel graphics driver with the upcoming Linux 6.15 cycle. It's a big one...
Blender's Vulkan Renderer Is Making Great Progress To Production Readiness This Year
With the release of Blender 4.3 last November an experimental Vulkan back-end was added and it continues to be improved upon for modernizing this 3D creation suite for digital artists and serving a variety of other purposes. The upcoming Blender 4.4 release will further refine the Vulkan support while later in the year it should be reaching production readiness...
Mold 2.37 Linker Preps For Intel APX
Rui Ueyama released Mold 2.37 today as the newest feature update to this high performance linker as an alternative to GNU Gold and LLVM LLD...
Making Vulkan More Of A "Joy To Use" Discussed At Vulkanised 2025
In addition to Vulkan-powered AI / machine learning talks at last month's Vulkanised 2025 conference, another interesting topic at this annual Vulkan developer conference was around improving the Vulkan API and making it easier for new developers and maximizing the potential with new GPU hardware...