Latest Linux Hardware Reviews, Open-Source News & Benchmarks

It was just four years ago in Ubuntu 19.10 that Ubuntu's desktop installer added OpenZFS support for carrying out root file-system installations atop this ZFS file-system. Since then the Canonical/Ubuntu interest has waned. Ahead of the Ubuntu 23.04 release this week, I tried out the Ubuntu Lunar Lobster daily snapshot this weekend to find the OpenZFS install support with Ubuntu's new desktop installer to still be missing.

Linux 6.3-rc7 was just released and if the next week remains calm, it would mean that Linux 6.3 is shipping next weekend.

While we are basically past the cut-off of new feature material to into DRM-Next that wants to be part of the upcoming Linux 6.4 merge window, this week AMD sent in a fixes-oriented set of AMDGPU/AMDKFD kernel driver updates that does include some minor feature updates.

Sent in this morning for Linux 6.3 is a Linux CPU scheduler fix to deal with an imbalancing issue that's been present in the mainline kernel since a scheduler rework that landed back in late 2019.

Microsoft has published its latest CBL-Mariner 2.0.20230407 Linux distribution images this weekend as their in-house open-source OS that is used for a variety of purposes, mostly around Azure infrastructure.

Last October Google engineers decided they would deprecate JPEG-XL support in Chrome over some debated rationale for the move. Even amid the community uproar they went ahead to drop the JPEG-XL support. The Free Software Foundation has finally commented on the matter.

The digiKam 8.0 open-source professional photo management software has been released. The digiKam 8.0 release brings a host of new features and improvements, including ongoing work of porting over to the Qt6 toolkit.

LXQt 1.3 was just released as the newest version of this lightweight Qt-based desktop environment.

Being worked on for a while has been Linux kernel patches to speed boot times by allowing the parallel bring-up of CPU cores. There were AMD boot issues since worked around and the patches gone through multiple revisions for helping with Linux kernel boot times. Those patches continue to be improved upon and yesterday saw a reworked patch series posted.

OpenZFS 2.1.10 is out as the latest update to this open-source ZFS file-system implementation currently supported on Linux and FreeBSD systems.

The HP Elite 8200 was once popular and very common among workplaces and can still be found used/refurbished for a little more than $100 for this small form factor PC. Libreboot has now added support for the HP Elite 8200 as its newest desktop port for this Intel Sandy Bridge era system.

Following this week's Mesa 23.1 feature freeze and code branching, Eric Engestrom on Friday night published Mesa 23.1-rc1.

Plasma 6.0 development continues happening at full-speed and exciting this week were landing of some improvements around KWin's multi-GPU infrastructure to benefit Intel and AMD Radeon graphics.

Wine 8.6 is out as the newest bi-weekly development release of this open-source software to enjoy Windows games and applications on Linux and other platforms.

If you have been running a Linux 6.3-based kernel or later Linux 6.2 point release and have encountered your HDMI audio breaking when making use of Intel Arc Graphics A750/A770 hardware, a fix is on the way.

Open-source fans, rejoice, the most exciting thing I have read all week or perhaps the month: "AMD is committed to open-source software and is now expanding into the various firmware domains with the re-architecture of its x86 AGESA FW stack - designed with UEFI as the host firmware that prevented scaling, to other host firmware solutions such as coreboot, oreboot, FortiBIOS, Project Mu and others. A newer, open architecture that potentially allows for reduced attack surface, and perceivably infinite scalability is now available as a Proof-of-Concept, within the open-source community for evaluation, called the AMD openSIL – Open-Source Silicon Initialization Library."

There is two weeks to go until the Linux 6.3 stable kernel is released, which could drag out to three weeks if last minute issues come about in the kernel. But given all the material queuing via the many "-next" code branches, we already have a good idea for many of the features in store for Linux 6.4.

Landing today in Mesa 23.2-devel is support for big.LITTLE CPU detection or more broadly hybrid CPU core detection where little cores (e.g. E cores) are defined as having less than 50% the capacity of the largest CPU core on the system. This is done since Mesa's OpenGL threading is now being disabled for small hybrid processors.

Mesa 23.1 enables RadeonSI Rusticl support while for next quarter's Mesa 23.2, which just started development, there is already a big ticket item for Rusticl: Shared Virtual Memory (SVM) support.

AMD's Sensor Fusion Hub (SFH) driver with the upcoming Linux 6.4 cycle is being extended to support new Ambient Color Sensor "ACS" functionality.

The much anticipated Fedora 38 is cleared for releasing on Tuesday. There are no delays with the Fedora 38 cycle and in fact hitting their "early target date" for shipping on 18 April.

As part of Intel's ongoing Linux support preparations for next year's Sierra Forest processors that will feature up to 144 Xeon E cores per socket, the Error Detection And Correction (EDAC) driver support is set to be added for the upcoming Linux 6.4 kernel cycle.

Libreboot is the downstream of Coreboot focused on having fully open-source / free software replacements to proprietary BIOS/firmware on x86 and ARM systems. Out today is Libreboot 20230413 as the latest step forward for the project.

The Mesa 23.1 graphics driver code is now branched that marks an end to this quarter's feature development. Mesa 23.2-devel is now open on Git main in beginning work towards the Q3'2023 open-source user-space graphics driver stack feature release.

Canonical announced today that their kernel livepatching service will now be available for their hardware enablement "HWE" kernels on Ubuntu Long-Term Support releases.

For those with a Lenovo Yoga 2-in-1/convertible laptop, a tablet mode switch driver is set to be merged for Linux 6.4 to properly handle the tablet mode switching support for these devices while running the mainline Linux kernel.

Days after releasing the Intel Media Driver 2023Q1, Intel's software engineers have now released oneVPL 2023Q1 as the updated quarterly release to this video processing library that is part of Intel's open-source oneAPI toolkit.

Servo as the browser engine started at Mozilla but now developed as a Linux Foundation project has been maintaining two separate layout engines and moving forward they hope to be able to focus on the newer "Layout 2020" engine and fill in its missing gaps.

While we are still waiting for the Intel Xe kernel driver to be upstreamed as the modern alternative to the long-used i915 Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) driver, upstream Mesa Git is nearly ready in supporting the Xe kernel driver and its new/changed interfaces.

In addition to releasing the GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card today (unfortunately, no launch day Linux review, still waiting on hardware...), NVIDIA has released as open-source the RTX Remix software for helping to add path tracing support to classic games.

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) has racked up a big win today with Arm over enabling chip designers to make use of Intel's upcoming 18A process for low-power Arm SoCs.

If Mesa 23.1 couldn't get anymore exciting with RADV GPL support enabled by default, more RDNA3 optimizations, continued Zink optimizations, more Intel DG2/Alchemist enhancements, and a load of other features... Support for RadeonSI with the Rusticl Rust-written OpenCL driver has been merged!

The mainline Linux 6.4 kernel is set to see a new touchscreen driver for supporting the Novatek NVT-ts, which is used by at least a once popular Intel Atom powered Android tablet from a decade prior.

KDE Connect is the great software that allows for interfacing between the KDE desktop and your various mobile devices running Android, Plasma Mobile, Apple iOS, or even Sailfish OS. KDE Connect allows easily sharing files and data with your mobile device(s), receiving phone notifications on your desktop, and a lot of other remote/cross-device functionality. The KDE Connect 2.0 initiative that is taking shape this year thanks to full-time development work is going to modernize this open-source solution.

A new Intel graphics kernel driver patch posted by Intel on Tuesday confirm that upcoming Meteor Lake processors will feature an ADM/L4 cache.