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NVGRACE-GPU VFIO Driver Preparing For NVIDIA Grace Blackwell
NVGRACE-GPU VFIO Driver Preparing For NVIDIA Grace Blackwell
9 Hours Ago - 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
10 Hours Ago - 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
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
SDL 3.1.3 Stable ABI Preview Release
5 October 06:20 AM EDT - Linux Gaming - SDL 3.1.3 - 23 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
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
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
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
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.

AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series Dominates Intel Core Ultra 7 Lunar Lake Performance For Linux Developers & Creators
AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series Dominates Intel Core Ultra 7 Lunar Lake Performance For Linux Developers & Creators
4 October 01:30 PM EDT - Processors - 37 Comments

Earlier this week I delivered initial Intel Xe2 Lunar Lake graphics benchmarks on Linux while today the focus is on Lunar Lake's CPU performance. The Xe2 graphics performance under Linux was disappointingly slow with it performing even worse than Meteor Lake while RDNA3.5 graphics led. Intel has been investigating the Xe2 Linux graphics performance but I haven't heard any updates yet. Today the attention is on the Lunar Lake CPU side under Linux and it too isn't looking too good. The performance of this 8-core Core Ultra 7 256V SoC is poor in real-world multi-threaded scenarios and the performance-per-Watt is only compelling in a subset of workloads. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 and AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Zen 5 SoCs tended to deliver the superior performance and power efficiency under Linux.

ZLUDA Takes On Third Life: Open-Source Multi-GPU CUDA Implementation Focused On AI
ZLUDA Takes On Third Life: Open-Source Multi-GPU CUDA Implementation Focused On AI
4 October 10:00 AM EDT - Free Software - ZLUDA - 36 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
Red Hat Engineer Working On DRM Panic Support For AMDGPU Driver
4 October 06:52 AM EDT - Radeon - DRM Panic - 24 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
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
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.

3 October

MRDIMM 8800MT/s vs. DDR5-6400 Memory Performance With Intel Xeon 6
3 October 04:00 PM EDT - Memory - 11 Comments

Last week when kicking off the Intel Granite Rapids benchmarking with the Xeon 6980P processors there was particularly strong performance within HPC and other scientific computing workloads. Besides going now up to 128 cores / 256 threads per socket, another reason for the especially strong generational uplift and against the current AMD EPYC competition is Xeon 6 Granite Rapids introducing Multiplexed Rank memory support. One of the areas I've been eager to explore is quantifying the DDR5-6400 vs. MRDIMM 8800MT/s performance difference and this article is dedicated to looking at that memory performance impact for the Xeon 6900P series.

Intel Xeon 6900P "Granite Rapids" List Prices Top Out At $17,800 USD
3 October 02:30 PM EDT - Intel - Intel Xeon 6900P Pricing - 4 Comments

Last week with the launch of the Intel Xeon 6900P "Granite Rapids" processors, Intel didn't disclose their list prices... Today they added the Granite Rapids list prices to their ARK database. With Granite Rapids making Intel much more competitive to the AMD EPYC competition and over prior generation Xeon CPUs, these new processors are commanding a higher price tag with the Xeon 6980P topping out at $17,800 USD.

Fedora's Kernel Build Now Enabling Sched_Ext Support
3 October 08:37 AM EDT - Fedora - Fedora + sched_ext - 6 Comments

Now that sched_ext was upstreamed into the mainline Linux kernel as part of the many great features in Linux 6.12, Fedora's kernel builds are prepared to enable this innovative scheduler feature that allows for new scheduling policies to be loaded via (e)BPF programs.

Giga Computing Announces GA On Their AmpereOne Servers
3 October 06:17 AM EDT - Arm - General Availability - 4 Comments

After years of AmpereComputing talking about AmpereOne AArch64 server processors, it looks like we are finally on the cusp of seeing broader availability of the processors and servers/motherboards for this ARM server platform up to 192 cores. At the end of August I finally received a temporary review system with the AmpereOne A192-32X flagship SKU. That server was the Supermicro ARS-211M-NR and is supposed to be seeing availability real soon. Now the latest on the AmpereOne front is Giga Computing (Gigabyte) announcing general availability of their servers.

2 October

Some Intel Linux Driver Maintainers Have Left The Company
2 October 02:23 PM EDT - Intel - Intel Layoffs - 18 Comments

With the recent Intel layoffs and early retirement / buyout packages, I have been curious to see what impact it will have on the open-source/Linux software engineers at the company. There's at least a few driver maintainers that have unfortunately departed the company but at least no major exodus of their well respected Linux software engineers.

Notcurses Is Still Alive For Ramping Up "Terminal Bling" With Complex TUIs
2 October 06:47 AM EDT - Programming - Notcurses - 25 Comments

For those wanting to build really nifty and complex text user interfaces (TUIs) for terminal applications, Notcurses is one of the options for maximizing the "terminal bling" with some rather vibrant features that goes well beyond what's offered with the likes of Ncurses. It's been nearly two years since the last release while was surprised today to see out a new version.

Golang Now Enables Speedier getrandom() On Linux
2 October 06:34 AM EDT - Programming - Golang + getrandom vDSO - 5 Comments

The Linux 6.11 kernel introduced getrandom() in the vDSO for faster yet secure user-space random number generation needs. In addition to patches pending for Glibc to make use of getrandom() vDSO support, Golang is now another early user of this functionality.

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