Hardware News Archives


2,168 Hardware open-source and Linux related news articles on Phoronix since 2006.

ASUS Announces The ROG Ally X Upgraded Handheld
ASUS Announces The ROG Ally X Upgraded Handheld

ASUS used Computex 2024 for announcing the ROG Ally X, the latest version of their handheld gaming console. The ASUS ROG Ally X continues to be powered by the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC but now having more storage, faster RAM, a larger battery, updated controls, and other refinements.

2 June 2024 - ASUS ROG Ally X - 13 Comments
Linux 6.10 Is Making It Much Easier To Deal With Quirky Touchscreens
Linux 6.10 Is Making It Much Easier To Deal With Quirky Touchscreens

Right now when dealing with quirky/buggy touchscreens a C file needs to be manually manipulated and the Linux kernel recompiled. With a new "i2c_touchscreen_props" kernel command line option on its way to the mainline kernel, the process of overriding touchscreen properties is dramatically easier for those dealing with Linux on touchscreen-enabled devices.

31 May 2024 - i2c_touchscreen_props - 5 Comments
Framework Announces Intel Core Ultra Powered Laptop With 2.8k Display
Framework Announces Intel Core Ultra Powered Laptop With 2.8k Display

Framework is out today with some exciting announcements from lowering the price of the existing Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 series SoC to announcing a new Framework Laptop 13 powered by Intel Core Ultra (Meteor Lake) and having a new 2.8K display option for this modular/upgradeable laptop shipping this summer.

29 May 2024 - Framework 13 + Core Ultra - 27 Comments
Framework 13 & 16 Added To ChromeOS Platform Driver In Linux 6.10
Framework 13 & 16 Added To ChromeOS Platform Driver In Linux 6.10

The Framework 13 and Framework 16 AMD Ryzen powered laptops make use of an NPCX embedded controller that rely on the ChromeOS open-source embedded controller (EC) firmware. With the Linux 6.10 kernel the Chrome OS "cros_ec_lpc" driver is being extended to support these latest Framework upgradeable laptops.

24 May 2024 - cros_ec_lpc - 5 Comments
Linux 6.10 Adds Support For The Machenike G5 Pro Controller
Linux 6.10 Adds Support For The Machenike G5 Pro Controller

Following the HID changes last week that brought Steam Deck IMU and ASUS ROG Ally support along with other Human Interface Device additions, on Thursday the input subsystem updates were submitted for this new kernel. The Machenike G5 Pro gaming controller is now supported along with other input additions.

24 May 2024 - Linux 6.10 Input - Add A Comment
Linux 6.10 Staging Drops Broken & Unused Drivers To Remove 19k L.O.C.
Linux 6.10 Staging Drops Broken & Unused Drivers To Remove 19k L.O.C.

In addition to the Linux 6.10 USB changes and char/misc with the new NTSYNC driver, Greg Kroah-Hartman on Wednesday also sent out the staging updates for Linux 6.10. There isn't much in the way of new code but some 19k lines of code removed thanks to removing an unused driver as well as a broken driver.

23 May 2024 - 19k Lines Of Code Removed - 8 Comments
Linux 6.10 Adds Support For The RISC-V Milk-V Mars & More SoC Additions
Linux 6.10 Adds Support For The RISC-V Milk-V Mars & More SoC Additions

Last week the main SoC/platform updates were sent in for Linux 6.10 that included more ARM-based handheld game consoles and other new Arm devices from ASUS wireless routers to set-top boxes to enabling various SoCs. This week a secondary set of updates were submitted for the Linux 6.10 kernel merge window.

22 May 2024 - Linux 6.10 SoCs - 3 Comments
Many x86 Laptop Improvements In Linux 6.10 Plus Acer ARM Laptop
Many x86 Laptop Improvements In Linux 6.10 Plus Acer ARM Laptop

The x86 platform driver updates have been merged for the ongoing Linux 6.10 merge window. The platform-drivers-x86 changes continue to primarily revolve around x86 Intel/AMD laptops but also some other desktop/platform drivers. Now in Linux 6.10 there is also a new "ARM64" sub-section of the platform drivers.

20 May 2024 - x86 Platform Drivers - 11 Comments
Firewire IEEE-1394 Support Continues To Be Improved With The Linux 6.10 Kernel
Firewire IEEE-1394 Support Continues To Be Improved With The Linux 6.10 Kernel

While most of you have not thought about or used Firewire (IEEE-1394) in years, there still are some legacy digital video cameras and some professional audio devices relying on the interface. Last year saw a new Firewire maintainer step-up for the Linux kernel after the code had fallen dormant. The plans by that new maintainer, Takashi Sakamoto, are to maintain Linux's Firewire support through 2029. He's continuing to do a good job with the upcoming Linux 6.10 kernel bringing the latest batch of Firewire enhancements.

16 May 2024 - Linux 6.10 + Firewire - 5 Comments
Framework 13 AMD Laptop Seeing Experimental Coreboot Port
Framework 13 AMD Laptop Seeing Experimental Coreboot Port

The Framework Laptops are some great systems with their upgradeable/modular design, friendly Linux support, both Intel and AMD options, the latest models making use of an open-source embedded controller, and nice build quality. The Framework Laptops have proven very popular with Linux/open-source enthusiasts but one of the recurring critiques has been the lack of Coreboot firmware support for these laptops as an alternative (or outright replacement) to the proprietary BIOS/firmware. As a promising avenue for the future, there is experimental work being done on getting Coreboot up and running with the Framework 13 laptop powered by the AMD Ryzen 7040 series.

14 May 2024 - Framework 13 AMD - 17 Comments
Linux 6.10 Adding TPM Bus Encryption & Integrity Protection
Linux 6.10 Adding TPM Bus Encryption & Integrity Protection

Linux 6.10 is introducing support for Trusted Platform Module (TPM2) encryption and integrity protections to prevent active/passive interposers from compromising them. This follows a recent security demonstration of TPM key recovery from Microsoft Windows BitLocker being demonstrated. TPM sniffing attacks have also been demonstrated against Linux systems too, thus the additional protections be made with Linux 6.10 to better secure TPM2 modules.

10 May 2024 - TPM Encryption + Integrity - 8 Comments
ChromeOS EC Hardware Monitoring Driver Being Revived For Framework Laptops
ChromeOS EC Hardware Monitoring Driver Being Revived For Framework Laptops

In addition to a Framework Laptop EC driver being prepared for Linux that extends the Chrome OS embedded controller (EC) used by recent Framework Laptops, a ChromeOS EC hardware monitoring (HWMON subsystem) driver has also been revived as a further support extension for Framework laptops on Linux.

9 May 2024 - ChromeOS EC HWMON Driver - 2 Comments
SHIFTphone 8 Preparing Mainline Linux Support Ahead Of Launch
SHIFTphone 8 Preparing Mainline Linux Support Ahead Of Launch

SHIFTphone 8 is the upcoming modular and easy-to-repair smartphone from Germany's SHIFT GmbH. This is the first major SHIFTphone update in four years and there are pending patches providing mainline Linux kernel support for this forthcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon powered modular/upgradeable smartphone.

8 May 2024 - SHIFTphone 8 - 31 Comments
Framework Laptop EC Driver Being Prepared For Linux
Framework Laptop EC Driver Being Prepared For Linux

The modular/upgradeable Framework Laptops employ an open-source embedded controller (EC) firmware derived from Google's Chrome OS EC project. This is great for open-source fans and allows re-using much of the same Chrome OS EC software support that already exists. But there is also vendor-specific commands supported by the Framework Laptop EC and thus a dedicated Linux kernel driver is now being worked on for handling those vendor/device-specific features.

6 May 2024 - Framework Laptop Embedded Controller - 25 Comments
Dell Laptop Platform Profile Patches Being Worked On For Linux
Dell Laptop Platform Profile Patches Being Worked On For Linux

A patch recently posted to the Linux kernel mailing list is working on implementing ACPI Platform Profile support for modern Dell laptops to allow users to have more control over their balanced / cool / quiet / performance behavior of the laptop and its resulting impact on the fan noise / cooling performance.

3 May 2024 - Fan Mode Changing For Laptops - 7 Comments
NZXT Kraken 2023 AIO CPU Cooler Monitoring With Linux 6.10
NZXT Kraken 2023 AIO CPU Cooler Monitoring With Linux 6.10

Merged back in 2021 with Linux 5.13 was an NZXT Kraken hardware monitoring "HWMON" driver to support sensor monitoring of these all-in-one liquid cooling products from NZXT. Over time more NZXT Kraken AIO coolers have been supported by the Linux kernel and with the upcoming Linux 6.10 kernel the latest NZXT Kraken CPU coolers will be supported.

2 May 2024 - NZXT-Kraken All In One Coolers - Add A Comment
Polychromatic 0.9 OpenRazer GUI Frontend Released With Port To PyQt6
Polychromatic 0.9 OpenRazer GUI Frontend Released With Port To PyQt6

Polychromatic is the open-source software package that serves as a GUI front-end to the OpenRazer drivers for allowing Razer devices to be configured under Linux for managing keyboard/mice RGB lighting and other options. With today's Polychromatic 0.9 release there is a port for the Qt6 toolkit.

24 April 2024 - Polychromatic - 1 Comment
Reverse Engineered MSI WMI Platform Driver Being Worked On For Linux
Reverse Engineered MSI WMI Platform Driver Being Worked On For Linux

Submitted for code review this weekend was a new MSI WMI Platform driver that was developed via reverse engineering MSI laptops. Initially this MSI WMI Platform driver is just exposing fan speed sensors but ultimately can be more useful for other Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) features.

22 April 2024 - MSI WMI Platform Driver - 5 Comments
udev-hid-bpf To Help Enable HID-BPF Use Rather Than Kernel Drivers To Fix HID Hardware
udev-hid-bpf To Help Enable HID-BPF Use Rather Than Kernel Drivers To Fix HID Hardware

Right now for buggy HID hardware or other input devices not exactly aligning to specs or having known hardware workarounds required, a new Linux kernel driver tends to be needed or at least quirks to be added to existing kernel driver code. There's no shortage of wonky HID hardware/drivers out there to deal with such odd cases. Due to the lengthy kernel cycles and other factors involved, leveraging (e)BPF has long been talked about as one of the areas where it may make sense for being able to more quickly send out hardware support fixes in the form of eBPF programs. The Rust-written udev-hid-bpf project is ready to help in that enabling effort.

22 April 2024 - udev-hid-bpf - 5 Comments
Rockchip NPU Open-Source Driver Taking Shape, Will Aim For Upstream Accel Driver
Rockchip NPU Open-Source Driver Taking Shape, Will Aim For Upstream Accel Driver

It was just one month ago that open-source developer Tomeu Vizoso was beginning work on reverse-engineering and writing a Rockchip NPU driver following his work on the Vivante NPU IP open-source driver support. He quickly began seeing the driver working and with very viable performance and now today he's shared another update on this Rockchip open-source NPU driver effort.

19 April 2024 - Rockchip NPU - 2 Comments
x86-64-v5? Questions Arise Over The Future Of x86-64 Micro-Architecture Feature Levels
x86-64-v5? Questions Arise Over The Future Of x86-64 Micro-Architecture Feature Levels

While recently there has been more Linux distribution vendor interest in evaluating x86-64-v2 and/or x86-64-v3 baselines for future Linux distribution releases as well as offering optimized packages for higher x86-64 baselines either for x86-64-v3 with being able to assume AVX/AVX2 or in the x86-64-v4 level where AVX-512 is introduced, the prospect of x86-64 micro-architecture feature levels for future processors isn't clear.

7 April 2024 - x86-64-v5? - 54 Comments

2168 Hardware news articles published on Phoronix.