Svobodný software

Intel is using Computex 2025 to showcase their new Arc Pro B-Series graphics cards that will be available in Q3 for professional use-cases as well as focusing on AI inference workstations and edge computing workloads. Plus they are noting some significant improvements coming to their Linux software stack.

Coming somewhat as a surprise is the Nouveau driver patches for enabling NVIDIA Blackwell and Hopper GPUs has now been queued to DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 6.16 merge window. So barring any surprises, this next version of the Linux kernel will feature preliminary open-source mainline kernel driver support for these newer NVIDIA GPUs...

Google engineers the past few years have been working on Device Memory TCP for the Linux kernel to allow zero-copy receive of TCP payloads to DMA-BUF regions such as device memory attached directly to a GPU or AI accelerator or other device memory accessible with DMA-BUF. For Linux 6.12 that initial Device Memory TCP receive support was merged while slated for the upcoming Linux 6.16 cycle is Device Memory TCP TX transfer support...

For going along with kernel DRM driver changes expected for the Linux 6.16 kernel, the Imagination PowerVR BXS-4-64 GPU firmware has now been upstreamed to linux-firmware.git for readying that open-source driver support for this PowerVR Rogue GPU...

Queued up via the FUSE "for-next" Git branch ahead of the upcoming Linux 6.16 merge window is a change to increase the read directory buffer size to in turn enhance the performance...

GIMP 3.0.4 released today with more bug fixes to this popular image editor as a free software alternative to the likes of Adobe Photoshop...

Linus Torvalds released today the seventh weekly release candidate to Linux 6.15 with the stable kernel potentially debuting next Sunday...

On the networking front with the upcoming Linux 6.16 merge window is supporting the new Realtek RTL8127A 10GbE Ethernet Controller...

The ByoWave Proteus Controller Kit is a modular gaming controller that allows snapping together different combinations of input toggles and to reposition the triggers and buttons depending upon your preferences. Support for the ByoWave Proteus Controllers is already supported by Valve's SteamOS while now the controllers will soon be supported by the mainline Linux kernel...

Debian 13.0 is now one step closer to release with Debian developers having moved Debian "Trixie" into a hard freeze state ahead of the official release this summer...

Linux 6.14.7 and other new point releases for stable and maintained Linux kernel series were released today. Among the fixes incorporated were a notable ARM64 security fix...

With the recently-launched Ubuntu 25.04 and Fedora 42 Linux distributions I've been seeing very healthy competition on Intel and AMD x86_64 hardware between these two leading Linux operating systems. But, surprisingly, after evaluating the AArch64 performance I was surprised to find Ubuntu 25.04 delivering a decisive advantage over Fedora 42 when testing on Ampere Altra using a System76 Thelio Astra workstation.

First on Phoronix earlier this week was highlighting AMD making their first step toward Zen 6 CPU feature development for the Linux kernel with introducing a "ZEN6" feature flag and filling out the Family 1Ah models that will be attributed to those next-gen CPUs. That patch has now been merged for Linux 6.15 and will be found in tomorrow's Linux 6.15-rc7 release...

While Debian 13 is coming soon, for the moment the Debian 12 series remains the latest stable series for this widely-used Linux distribution. Out today is Debian 12.11 that adds in dozens of bug fixes...

Niri 25.05 is out today as the newest major step forward for this scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor that has developed a devoted following...

Nate Graham is out with his weekly development summary to highlight all of the interesting Plasma happenings for the past week...

Released today is the RC1 version of Debian Installer for Debian 13 "Trixie"...

NVIDIA has supplied updated GPU System Processor (GSP) firmware derived from their R570 driver series to the upstream linux-firmware.git repository...

FreeBSD 14.3 Beta 3 is ready for testing as the newest test release on the road to the FreeBSD 14.3 point release due out in June...

Started just over one year ago was the effort to create an open-source Rockchip NPU driver. While not yet mainlined to the Linux kernel, progress on this kernel driver and associated user-space driver continues...