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GCC 15 Un-Deprecates Itanium IA-64 Linux Support
GCC 15 Un-Deprecates Itanium IA-64 Linux Support
13 Hours Ago - GNU - Itanium Sticking Around - 20 Comments

The GCC 14 compiler marked Itanium IA-64 support as obsolete with plans to remove that Intel architecture in GCC 15. But for now at least the Itanium Linux compiler support has seen some reprieve with it being un-deprecated.

8 October

Intel Xeon 6980P 1S Performance With DDR5-6400/MRDIMM-8800
Intel Xeon 6980P 1S Performance With DDR5-6400/MRDIMM-8800
8 October 10:40 AM EDT - Processors - 7 Comments

With the Xeon 6980P Granite Rapids benchmarking at Phoronix the past few weeks it's been in a dual socket (2S / 2P) configuration. For those curious about the Intel Xeon 6980P 128-core server performance for a single socket (1S) configuration, here are those complementary results out today and for both DDR5-6400 and MRDIMM-8800 memory configurations. Thus a well-rounded look at the single Xeon 6980P performance compared to other single and dual socket Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC server processors.

Intel's Rendering Toolkit Turns To More Open, Community-Welcoming Development Model
Intel's Rendering Toolkit Turns To More Open, Community-Welcoming Development Model
8 October 09:51 AM EDT - Intel - oneAPI Rendering Toolkit - 4 Comments

Intel's oneAPI Rendering Toolkit with the likes of OSPRay, Embree, OpenVKL, Open Image Denoise, and others has been open-source for years. But it's not been exactly an open-source development model with making it easy for independent contributors to propose code changes. But Intel has now decided to make these projects more like traditional open-source projects and welcoming community contributions -- including from different hardware vendors.

LunarG Exploring Vulkan To Metal Translation With Mesa
LunarG Exploring Vulkan To Metal Translation With Mesa
8 October 06:19 AM EDT - Mesa - Vulkan To Apple Metal - 14 Comments

While there is the open-source MoltenVK project that implements the Vulkan API atop Apple's Metal graphics drivers on iOS/macOS, the 3D graphics consulting firm LunarG is exploring the possibility of implementing Vulkan to Metal translation using Mesa.

7 October

GNOME Foundation Announces Cost Cutting Measures Due To Budget Woes
GNOME Foundation Announces Cost Cutting Measures Due To Budget Woes
7 October 09:00 PM EDT - GNOME - Reducing Travels + More - 129 Comments

While the recently-departed GNOME Foundation Executive Director in the summer statement was described as "drafting a bold five-year strategic plan for the Foundation, securing two important fiscal sponsorship agreements with GIMP and Black Python Devs, writing our first funding proposal that will now enable the Foundation to apply for more grants, vastly improving our financial operations, and implementing a break-even budget to preserve our financial reserves." It turns out that wasn't enough. The GNOME Foundation today announced some new cost-cutting measures for the project overseeing the open-source GNOME desktop.

FEX 2410 Released With New JIT Optimizations
FEX 2410 Released With New JIT Optimizations
7 October 04:09 PM EDT - Linux Gaming - FEX 2410 - 9 Comments

FEX 2410 is out as the newest monthly update to this open-source emulator that allows running Linux x86/x86_64 binaries on Linux AArch64 (ARM 64-bit) systems, including for games and software like Steam. With FEX 2410 there are yet more fixes as well as some new JIT optimizations.

NVGRACE-GPU VFIO Driver Preparing For NVIDIA Grace Blackwell
NVGRACE-GPU VFIO Driver Preparing For NVIDIA Grace Blackwell
7 October 06:39 AM EDT - NVIDIA - NVIDIA Grace Blackwell VFIO Support - Add A Comment

The NVGRACE-GPU VFIO driver was introduced for handling Virtual Function I/O support with the NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchip so that the GPU device could be assigned to guests using KVM/QEMU and similar for virtualization. The NVGRACE-GPU driver is now being extended for supporting the forthcoming NVIDIA Grace Blackwell "GB" designs.

Linux Thermal/Power Platform Profile Support Coming For Alienware Systems
Linux Thermal/Power Platform Profile Support Coming For Alienware Systems
7 October 06:23 AM EDT - Hardware - dell-wmi-awcc - Add A Comment

Following work last month for extending the Dell WMI sysman Linux driver to handle Alienware systems for managing the system BIOS within the confines of Linux, another separate improvement is on the way for enhancing Alienware hardware support under Linux. This newest effort is introducing the "dell-wmi-awcc" driver for handling functionality found under Windows with the Alienware Command Center.

6 October

More Intel Diamond Rapids Enablement Landing For Linux 6.12
More Intel Diamond Rapids Enablement Landing For Linux 6.12
6 October 11:51 AM EDT - Intel - Intel Diamond Rapids - Add A Comment

In addition to Intel's Linux engineers being busy preparing hardware enablement support for next-gen Panther Lake client processors, they are also busy beginning to plumb Linux driver support for next-generation Xeon "Diamond Rapids" support as the successor to Xeon 6 Granite Rapids. With Linux 6.12 some new bits are now set to land for Diamond Rapids.

5 October

Fedora 41 Has Working Intel IPU6 Web Camera Support With Modern Laptops
5 October 09:42 AM EDT - Fedora - Fedora 41 + Intel IPU6 - 9 Comments

It's been a long journey to see good web camera support for Intel Alder Lake and newer designs making use of the IPU6 imaging IP. But with Fedora 41 due for release in the coming weeks, there will finally be good out-of-the-box, open-source support for the IPU6-based web cameras in modern Intel Core laptops across Tigerlake / Alder Lake / Raptor Lake laptops.

SDL 3.1.3 Stable ABI Preview Release
5 October 06:20 AM EDT - Linux Gaming - SDL 3.1.3 - 25 Comments

Sam Lantinga released SDL 3.1.3 on Friday as their "stable ABI preview" version ahead of the SDL 3.2.0 stable release. The developer at Valve notes that SDL3 has already been "battle tested by millions of people in DOTA, CS2 and Steam" and they are now gearing up for the SDL 3.2 stable release to get SDL3 out to the masses.

KDE Plasma 6.2 Preparing For Release Next Week
5 October 06:11 AM EDT - KDE - KDE Plasma 6.2 On 8 October - 19 Comments

KDE developers have been putting the finishing touches on the Plasma 6.2 desktop as it prepares to release next week. Plasma 6.2 will be out on Tuesday barring any last minute issues.

4 October

Wine 9.19 Brings Improved Window Positioning On Wayland
4 October 08:29 PM EDT - WINE - Wine 9.19 - 6 Comments

We are quickly working our way to the end of the calendar year where Wine 9.xx bi-weekly development releases will focus on a shift to stability for releasing Wine 10.0 in early 2025. But we're not there yet and Wine 9.19 is out today to deliver the newest batch of features and fixes for this open-source software to enjoy Windows games and apps on Linux.

Qualcomm Linux Driver Prepares For New "AIC080" Lower-Cost Cloud AI Accelerator
4 October 04:10 PM EDT - Hardware - Qualcomm Cloud AI 80 - Add A Comment

The Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 accelerator caters to a variety of edge-to-cloud industries. While the Qualcomm Cloud AI hardware isn't talked about as much as the AI accelerators from other vendors, there is the QAIC driver within the mainline Linux kernel for supporting the Cloud AI 100 along with associated open-source compiler and user-space stack. It turns out the Qualcomm Cloud AI family is growing with a Cloud AI 80 "AIC080" accelerator coming to market at a lower-cost.

Intel Panther Lake Introducing 5th Gen NPU - Initial Linux Patches Posted
4 October 01:42 PM EDT - Intel - Intel Panther Lake NPU - 2 Comments

Intel's Linux engineers continue working on preparing for next-generation hardware support within the kernel well ahead of launch. The latest on the recent enablement around next-gen Panther Lake processors is enabling a new "5th Gen" neural processing unit (NPU) to be found with Panther Lake P.

ZLUDA Takes On Third Life: Open-Source Multi-GPU CUDA Implementation Focused On AI
4 October 10:00 AM EDT - Free Software - ZLUDA - 38 Comments

The open-source ZLUDA project began life as a drop-in CUDA replacement that ran atop Intel GPUs using the Level Zero API. Then AMD quietly began funding it for several years as a viable CUDA implementation running atop AMD GPUs until discontinued funding earlier this year. ZLUDA for AMD GPUs was then made open-source but then in August the ZLUDA code was removed at AMD's request. Today it's taking on its third incarnation.

Red Hat Engineer Working On DRM Panic Support For AMDGPU Driver
4 October 06:52 AM EDT - Radeon - DRM Panic - 28 Comments

Red Hat engineer Jocelyn Falempe has been working to sort out DRM Panic support for the AMDGPU driver. The DRM Panic infrastructure is useful since it's what allows presenting a panic screen, a.k.a. a "Blue Screen of Death" type experience when running into major kernel problems. With Linux 6.12 there's now the ability to show QR codes for error messages with DRM Panic.

Zink Seeing VA-API Video Acceleration Implemented Over Vulkan Video
4 October 06:39 AM EDT - Mesa - VA-API On Vulkan Video - 15 Comments

The Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan driver has experimental code now available for testing that also implements the Video Acceleration API (VA-API) atop the Vulkan Video APIs. This is an interesting effort that now allows VA-API applications to rely on drivers with Vulkan Video support underneath.

Servo Browser Adds Android Downloads, Improved Tabbing & More
4 October 06:14 AM EDT - Mozilla - Servo Browser - 15 Comments

The Rust-written Servo web layout engine project that was born at Mozilla and now continued by Linux Foundation Europe with other stakeholders like Igalia has been making steady progress in recent months. The project's September 2024 status report is now available that outlines recent improvements to this open-source browser layout engine.

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