Linux 7.4 Preps CXL For Very Neat Dynamic Capacity Devices "DCD"
The Compute Express Link (CXL) subsystem changes were merged today for the Linux 7.4 kernel. The fun work this cycle is preparing to support Dynamic Capacity Devices...
Linux
RSSIntel IPU8 Support Upstreamed In Linux 7.4 For Nova Lake Laptops
The media subsystem changes have been merged for the Linux 7.4 kernel. Most notable is Intel IPU8 support being introduced for the next-gen image processing unit in high-end Nova Lake laptops..
Mesa 27.0 Switching To Kraid Compiler By Default For Arm Mali GPUs
In development for a number of months now has been Kraid as a modern graphics compiler for recent Arm Mali GPUs. Kraid was merged for Mesa 26.2 back in June while in Mesa 27.0 due out in Q1 it will be switching to this new shader compiler by default...
Snapdragon X1 Elite / Acer Swift 14 AI Performance On The Ubuntu 26.10 X1E Concept
For those curious about the Snapdragon X1 Elite performance on the recently released Ubuntu 26.10 Concept X1E ISO, here are some benchmarks showing the performance relative to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS X1E state on the same hardware.
Nouveau-DKMS Aims For Better NVIDIA Open-Source Experience On Old GPUs
Nouveau-DKMS is in development as an out-of-tree spin-off of the open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" driver focused on providing better support for NVIDIA GeForce 400/500 "Fermi" series graphics processors and potentially other generations too pre-Turing where the modern Nova driver is in development by NVIDIA...
Linux Fixes AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Regression Due To Cache Aware Scheduling
Merged for Linux 7.4 Git and marked for back-porting to Linux 7.2/7.3 stable is a regression fix affecting at least the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix Point" laptop SoC when making use of Cache Aware Scheduling...
AMD 600 Series Chipsets Now Have Temperature Monitoring Support On Linux
With the Linux 7.4 kernel and also marked for back-porting to the v7.2 and v7.3 series is finally the ability to monitor temperature sensors on AMD 600 Series chipsets that launched alongside the Ryzen 7000 series processors...
Linux 7.4 Block Updates Range From Floppy Disk Driver Fixes To Apple M4 NVMe Support
The Linux 7.4 block/storage and IO_uring updates were merged today for the ongoing merge window. With the breadth of Linux hardware support, the pull request varies from fixes to Linux's floppy driver to enabling support for NVMe storage on Apple M4 devices...
Linux 7.4 Graphics Driver Changes Headlined By AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 Features
Merged overnight were all the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) driver updates consisting of many kernel graphics/display driver improvements. Arguably most exciting with these updates for Linux 7.4 is the AMD Radeon (AMDGPU) driver seeing HDMI 2.1 FRL enabled by default along with other HDMI 2.1 features...
Linux 7.4 Merges Slab Updates With A Nice Performance Improvement
The slab pull request was just merged for Linux 7.4. For end users nothing too incredibly exciting but there is one change that does yield a 24% throughput improvement in a benchmark exercising the kernel's memory management subsystem...
Borealis: Asahi Linux's Apple Silicon Mesa Vulkan Driver Forked For Vibe Coding
Seeing a Vulkan API driver pull request this morning for introducing a new "Borealis" driver ID caught me by surprise as it was the first time I was hearing of such a driver. It turns out to be a fork of the Asahi Linux project's HoneyKrisp driver in Mesa for Apple Silicon hardware...
oneDNN 3.14 Released With ACE Support, Initial AMD Zen Optimizations
The UXL Foundation announced today the release of oneDNN 3.14 as the latest feature update to this library providing optimized deep learning operations for software like PyTorch, TensorFlow, OpenVINO, and others. While oneDNN began as an Intel software project, making this version notable is beginning to see AMD Zen…
Linux 7.4 Power Management Preps For AMD Ryzen Zen 6 & Intel Rugged Panther Lake
The power management subsystem updates were merged this week for Linux 7.4 along with the related ACPI and thermal control updates too...
Linux 7.4 Brings Hibernation Improvement For Helping Meet Energy Certifications
The PCI/PCIe subsystem improvements have been merged for the ongoing Linux 7.4 merge window...
FFmpeg 9.1 Preps For Release With APV Vulkan Encoder, NVIDIA Optical Flow FRUC
The release dance is underway for FFmpeg 9.1 as the newest feature release for this widely-used open-source multimedia library...
Linux 7.4 Fixes AMD CPU TLB Size Reporting For Zen 5 & Newer
As a follow-up to the article in September about a Linux patch for fixing under-reported AMD Zen 5 TLB sizes, that work is now merged for the Linux 7.4 kernel...
Snapdragon X2 Performance On Linux Exceeding Expectations In Initial Benchmarks
For your viewing pleasure today are the first Linux benchmarks of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme on Linux using the new Ubuntu 26.10 X1E Concept ISO for Snapdragon X laptop support on Linux. The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme flagship SoC is tested within the ASUS Zenbook A16 UX3607OA laptop.
Intel Core Ultra 9 Arrow Lake On Star Labs StarFighter Shows Nice Gains On Ubuntu 26.10
For those running a Star Labs StarFighter Ultra or other Intel Core Ultra Arrow Lake laptop, the recent Ubuntu 26.10 release is providing some nice performance gains over the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release. Here is a look at how Ubuntu 26.04 LTS vs. Ubuntu 26.10 performs with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H over dozens of…