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Ubuntu 23.04 Desktop's New Installer Set To Ship Without OpenZFS Install Support
Ubuntu 23.04 Desktop's New Installer Set To Ship Without OpenZFS Install Support
5 Hours Ago - Ubuntu - No OpenZFS Install - 9 Comments

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.

16 April

FSF Slams Google Over Dropping JPEG-XL In Chrome
FSF Slams Google Over Dropping JPEG-XL In Chrome
16 April 06:46 AM EDT - Free Software - JPEG-XL Deprecation - 64 Comments

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.

15 April

Reworked x86_64 Parallel Boot Support Posted For The Linux Kernel
Reworked x86_64 Parallel Boot Support Posted For The Linux Kernel
15 April 11:44 AM EDT - Linux Kernel - Parallel Boot Speed-up - 11 Comments

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.

Libreboot Adds Support For The Once Common HP Elite 8200 SFF PC
Libreboot Adds Support For The Once Common HP Elite 8200 SFF PC
15 April 08:35 AM EDT - Coreboot - HP Elite 8200 - 9 Comments

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.

14 April

AMD openSIL Detailed For Advancing Open-Source System Firmware
AMD openSIL Detailed For Advancing Open-Source System Firmware
14 April 01:30 PM EDT - AMD - AMD openSIL - 28 Comments

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."

Mesa OpenGL Threading Now Disabled For Small Hybrid CPUs
Mesa OpenGL Threading Now Disabled For Small Hybrid CPUs
14 April 09:00 AM EDT - Mesa - glthread hurts - 18 Comments

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.

Fedora 38 Being Released Next Tuesday
Fedora 38 Being Released Next Tuesday
14 April 06:26 AM EDT - Fedora - Fedora 38 On-Schedule - 18 Comments

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.

13 April

Intel Sierra Forest EDAC Support Coming With Linux 6.4
13 April 02:55 PM EDT - Intel - Intel Sierra Forest - 1 Comment

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.

Servo Project To Focus On Their "Layout 2020" Engine
13 April 05:58 AM EDT - Free Software - Servo + Layout 2020 - 12 Comments

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.

12 April

Mesa 23.1 RadeonSI Enables Rusticl OpenCL Support
12 April 07:02 AM EDT - Mesa - RadeonSI + Rusticl - 22 Comments

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!

KDE Connect 2.0 Planning For Big Improvements
12 April 06:21 AM EDT - KDE - KDE Connect 2.0 - 24 Comments

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.

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