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FOSS
Kernel, distros, and the wider free and open source software world.
491 stories archived
HPFS Is The Latest File-System Slated For Removal On Linux
HPFS is the latest file-system driver for the Linux kernel facing removal. The High Performance File-System (HPFS) was developed by IBM and Microsoft for OS/2...
Borealis: Asahi Linux's Apple Silicon Mesa Vulkan Driver Forked For Vibe Coding
Seeing a Vulkan API driver pull request this morning for introducing a new "Borealis" driver ID caught me by surprise as it was the first time I was hearing of such a driver. It turns out to be a fork of the Asahi Linux project's HoneyKrisp driver in Mesa for Apple Silicon hardware...
Calibre 9.7 touts faster ebook conversion speeds
Calibre 9.17 has been released with faster ebook conversion speeds and JPEG XL image support. The open-source ebook editor improves output compression speeds for MOBI, AZW3 and PDB files, which makes conversions to those formats quicker. Converting EPUB to MOBI is what I use Calibre for to read on my ancient Kindle. Calibre 9.17 can read JPEG XL images in eBooks and other supported documents during conversions. The format offers high image quality at smaller file sizes and supports features like HDR. JPEG XL is not new, but its popularity (and browser support) is on the up. Accessibility improvements see […] You're reading Calibre 9.7 touts faster ebook conversion speeds , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
[$] Seeking smaller kernel stacks
Memory has always been a scarce resource in computing systems, but the problem seems to have worsened recently. In particular, the worldwide shortage of memory chips has led to a renewed focus by systems developers on reducing memory usage. During the memory-management microconference at the 2026 Linux Plumbers Conference , Will Deacon discussed one specific consumer of memory that is being re-examined: kernel stacks.
oneDNN 3.14 Released With ACE Support, Initial AMD Zen Optimizations
The UXL Foundation announced today the release of oneDNN 3.14 as the latest feature update to this library providing optimized deep learning operations for software like PyTorch, TensorFlow, OpenVINO, and others. While oneDNN began as an Intel software project, making this version notable is beginning to see AMD Zen CPU optimizations land in oneDNN proper...
Linux 7.4 Power Management Preps For AMD Ryzen Zen 6 & Intel Rugged Panther Lake
The power management subsystem updates were merged this week for Linux 7.4 along with the related ACPI and thermal control updates too...
OpenSSL 4.1 Released With More AVX-512 Optimizations
OpenSSL 4.1 stable is out today with new AVX-512 optimizations, other performance improvements, and finally retiring Windows on Itanium and Windows CE support...
ArmSoM Sige7s Puts the RK3588S on a Raspberry Pi-Sized Board, and There's a Compute Module Too
The small SBC brings a 6 TOPS NPU, Wi-Fi 6, a Pi-compatible 40-pin header, and up to 32GB RAM, starting at $153.
Security updates for Friday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (buildah, expat, grafana, grafana-pcp, httpd, iperf3, openssh, php, php8.4, php:7.4, php:8.2, and php:8.3), Debian (aide, chromium, clamav, erlang, linux-6.12, roundcube, unbound, and webkit2gtk), Fedora (bind9-next, ca-certificates, clevis-pin-trustee, golang-x-mobile, knot-resolver, maradns, ntpsec, php, socat, and vlc), Mageia (golang, jq, msgpack, open-isns, perl-Mozilla-CA, roundcubemail, and sudo), Oracle (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, cockpit-files, cockpit-machines, fetchmail, glycin-loaders, golang, jackson-core, librsvg2, mariadb11.8, openexr, openssh, php, php8.4, php:7.4, php:8.2, php:8.3, postgresql:16, qt5-qtbase, rust-sequoia-sq, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Red Hat (ca-certificates and opentelemetry-collector), SUSE (aliyun-cli, amazon-ecs-init, bcel, coreutils, cups-filters, cyrus-sasl, distribution, expat, firefox, go1.26, go1.26-openssl, go1.27, guava, mutt, nvidia-open-driver-G07-signed, p11-kit, php74, php8, podman, python-soupsieve, python313-datamodel-code-generator, python313-Django5, thunderbird, and webkit2gtk3), and Ubuntu (openvpn, python-tornado, and zlib).
Linux 7.4 Brings Hibernation Improvement For Helping Meet Energy Certifications
The PCI/PCIe subsystem improvements have been merged for the ongoing Linux 7.4 merge window...
Vulkan 1.4.366 Released With SMPTE ST 2094-50 HDR Support
Vulkan 1.4.366 is out and representing the past two weeks of specification fixes, clarifications, and one new Vulkan API extension...
FFmpeg 9.1 Preps For Release With APV Vulkan Encoder, NVIDIA Optical Flow FRUC
The release dance is underway for FFmpeg 9.1 as the newest feature release for this widely-used open-source multimedia library...
Linux 7.4 Introduces New Driver For The Nintendo Switch 2 - Thanks To Valve
The HID subsystem updates have been merged for the Linux 7.4 kernel that included a few new drivers...
LibreSSL 4.4 Released With Faster SHA3, Bug Fixes
LibreSSL 4.4 released on Thursday as the newest release of this decade-old OpenSSL fork maintained by OpenBSD developers...
Linux 7.4 Fixes AMD CPU TLB Size Reporting For Zen 5 & Newer
As a follow-up to the article in September about a Linux patch for fixing under-reported AMD Zen 5 TLB sizes, that work is now merged for the Linux 7.4 kernel...
Canonical dev mocks up an Ubuntu launcher that uses AI
What would deeper AI integration on the Ubuntu desktop look like? Well, you don’t need to think too hard to find out. A Canonical engineer has published a prototype launcher that simulates how on-device AI could be used to enhance and aid users of the Ubuntu desktop. But the warty-prototype snap by Didier Roche-Tolomelli (aka didrocks) is not a real launcher. It’s a semi-interactive, automated mockup. It simulates things a user could do, and that includes interacting with a (theoretical) on-device AI model to complete tasks. The Snap Store listing refers to it as a ‘design-discussion prototype of the next Ubuntu […] You're reading Canonical dev mocks up an Ubuntu launcher that uses AI , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
Linux 7.4 Workqueue Changes Bring A "10 To 100 Times Faster" Optimization
Adding to all the exciting performance optimizations and other improvements for Linux 7.4 is an exciting workqueue improvement. It's not too often getting to talk about "10 to 100 times faster" software improvements...
Epic confirm Linux Fornite release, release new launcher
Epic Games has confirmed that Fortnite is coming to Linux, and the launcher it will arrive through is already available to try in preview on Ubuntu. Epic’s also rebuilt its anti-cheat tech to bring Fornite to Linux. Easy Anti-Cheat 2 will require Secure Boot, TPM 2.0 and a signed kernel to function. Easy Anti-Cheat has been available on Linux for a while, including for Windows games running via Proton, but not all games developers trust or enable it, since it’s not considered as robust as Windows versions. The nuances of anti-cheat is not my forte as I am not a […] You're reading Epic confirm Linux Fornite release, release new launcher , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
Fedora 45 Hits A Second NO-GO: Not Releasing Until November
Fedora 45 wasn't released this week as its ideal early release target due to not having a release candidate build in time for last week's Go/No-Go meeting. At today's Go/No-Go meeting, Fedora 45 was delayed by at least one more week due to open blocker bugs...
AI Helping To Improve Linux's AMD Zen CPU Microarchitecture Detection
A request for comments (RFC) was sent out last night on the Linux kernel mailing list in seeking to clean-up the AMD Zen microarchitecture detection within the kernel. This is for enhancing the kernel where there are code paths specific to a certain generation of AMD Zen processors or select generations such as Zen 3 through Zen 5 CPUs. AI was leveraged in helping to clean-up this AMD Zen code in the Linux kernel...
Modular's MAX Source Code Now Fully Opened, Under New MAX License
Back in August Modular's Mojo language was open-sourced following the acquisition of Chris Lattner's company by Qualcomm. The latest achievement now out of the company is their MAX software being fully opened up with the entire source tree available...
Red Hat Funded a Report That Found a Quarter of Incoming Pull Requests May Be AI Slop
The Linux Foundation Research survey also found that only 35% of projects have a formal policy permitting AI contributions.
KeePassXC 2.8 brings Qt 6 UI, auto-type on Wayland
If KeePassXC is your password-management app of choice on Linux, the new 2.8.0 update is going to please. KeePassXC 2.8.0 sees some “long-awaited new features” arrive, including a Qt6 port of the main app interface, auto-type support on Wayland via XDG Desktop Portals, fingerprint unlock and a new experimental Aarch64 AppImage. The Qt6 port has been a long-gestating effort. There’s no dramatic change to the way that KeePassXC looks and behaves (maybe a bit sharper on HiDPI), but it also benefits from being able to access improvements in platform capabilities, security and so on. Auto-type is what allows your saved login […] You're reading KeePassXC 2.8 brings Qt 6 UI, auto-type on Wayland , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
[$] The end of __get_user() and __put_user()
Linus Torvalds rarely writes significant amounts kernel code these days, so the merging of a 48-part patch series from him is an unusual event. This series, destined for the 7.4 kernel release, performs some long-delayed kernel cleanup by removing a couple of the primitives used to access user-space memory from the kernel. What was once a best practice has long been superseded, but it can take time for such changes to work their way through a body of code this large.