Svobodný software

Merged on Wednesday were some additional memory management "MM" updates for the Linux 7.0 merge window. Most interesting out of these latest three dozen patches is support for batched unmapping of file-backed large folios...

Simdjson is the open-source project for high performance JSON parsing by leveraging SIMD instructions for "parsing gigabytes of JSON per second." Notably it showed years ago the huge performance advantage to using AVX-512 in JSON parsing for surprisingly big benefits. Simdjson has continued advancing since then with various optimizations over the years and today is out with simdjson 4.3 that brings yet more SIMD optimizations...

PipeWire 1.6 is out today as the newest feature release for this software widely used by the Linux desktop for managing of audio and video streams while nicely integrating with sandboxed Flatpak apps and more...

Introduced to the Linux 4.12 kernel's staging area back in 2017 was the Realtek RTL8723BS WiFi driver. The Realtek RTL8723BS is an 802.11 b/g/ SDIO WLAN adapter with Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity too. In the nearly decade since this driver was added to the staging area, it's continued to be cleaned up and with the Linux 7.0 merge window there is yet again a lot of work on cleaning up this WiFi driver for the old Realtek hardware...

Použití velkých jazykových modelů ke zpracování logů, zvládání vysokorychlostních přenosů pomocí hardwarové akcelerace, sběr síťových dat a nasazení honeypotu. Nejen o tom se mluvilo druhý den na BSS 2026.

LLVM IR je navržen tak, aby byl efektivně využitelný i na moderních architekturách mikroprocesorů. Prakticky všechny podporují operace typu SIMD a některé operace tak lze provádět se skalárními hodnotami i s vektory.

Earlier this month we spotted the addition of a new GFX1170 GPU target in the AMDGPU LLVM back-end. Making this GFX1170 target interesting is that its marked as an APU/SoC part with "RDNA 4m" while being part of the GFX11 series. The GFX11 series is for RDNA3, GFX115x is for RDNA 3.5, and GFX12 is RDNA4. More ISA changes have now been committed to the AMDGPU LLVM back-end that make a few more instruction differences better aligned with RDNA4...

With the Linux 7.0 merge window beginning to calm down ahead of the 7.0-rc1 release due out on Sunday, one of the areas I was most excited about benchmarking on Linux 7.0 was looking for any performance gains with the new Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" given ongoing Intel Xe graphics driver improvements and other general kernel optimizations. Unfortunately, at large the Intel Panther Lake performance is moving in the wrong direction with the early Linux 7.0 benchmarking.

Long past due for retirement, the Linux 7.0 kernel has removed the obsolete Mwave driver for the 3780i ACP Modem found in some Pentium II era IBM ThinkPads from the 1990s...

Back in 2022 Intel announced OpenPGL as an open-source library for path guiding to help enhance the quality of path-based renderers. With time Blender began making use of OpenPGL and other industry interest and adoption. Unfortunately, Intel quietly ended work on OpenPGL in 2025 but has now fortunately found a new home...

Linux hardware vendor System76 has begun teasing a redesign of their Thelio chassis that is used by their modern desktops and workstations. Helping distinguish System76 from other Linux desktop/PC vendors has been their custom-engineered, built-in-the-USA enclosures and now they are preparing to launch a next-generation design...

Nová stabilná verzia distribúcie SparkyLinux 8.2 prebrala aktualizácie softvérových balíčkov z repozitárov Debianu 13. Vývojári zároveň pridali desktopové prostredie COSMIC, zatiaľ však iba na testovanie.

The x86 platform driver updates were merged recently for the ongoing Linux 7.0 merge window. As is a common theme for platform-drivers-x86, a lot of the feature work is around Linux laptop drivers for enhancing the support on modern hardware...

Earlier this month Dell sent over a review sample of their new UltraSharp U5223KW monitor. While the model number may not imply much, this monitor is outright incredible. The Dell UltraSharp U5223KW is a 52-inch 6K @ 120Hz monitor with integrated USB hub also working as a KVM switch, 140 Watt power delivery support for USB-C/Thunderbolt laptops, 2.5G Ethernet, and the color reproduction and visuals with this Dell 6K monitor are impeccable.

The Linux 7.0 kernel is shipping improvements for LoongArch, the Chinese CPU architecture inspired by MIPS64 and RISC-V and has been showing much potential for their domestic PC manufacturing...

Asahi Linux developers have published a status report following the recent Linux 6.19 kernel release to outline recent progress and upcoming items around Apple Silicon support on Linux. This year will also mark five years that Asahi Linux has been around for bringing Linux to the Apple M-Series hardware...

As part of enhancing the FreeBSD experience on laptops and desktops, FreeBSD developers have been working toward adding a convenient desktop install option to their text-based installer for easily deploying the KDE Plasma desktop along with the necessary GPU drivers. After it didn't get wrapped up in time for the FreeBSD 15.0 release, that desktop installer option is now ready for testing...

Last year we began seeing Linux patches preparing the kernel for Intel Data Streaming Accelerator "DSA" 3.0 IP. Finally with the Linux 7.0 kernel those patches in updated form have now been merged...

All of the KVM virtualization feature changes were recently merged for the in-development Linux 7.0 kernel...

Čerstvě vydaná Plasma 6.6 obsahuje novou klávesnici na obrazovce, rozšiřuje funkce pro lepší přístupnost postiženým a obsahuje nástroj Úvodní nastavení Plasmy.