section
FOSS
Kernel, distros, and the wider free and open source software world.
664 stories archived
Patches Posted To Improve Linux Media Acceleration On Intel Alchemist GPUs
The Intel Arc A-Series graphics (DG2) remains in a bit of an awkward state on Linux due to the transition period moving from the i915 kernel driver to more modern and feature capable Xe kernel driver. It's only post-Alchemist where the Intel Xe driver is officially supported and used by default while those opting for the Xe driver with the A-Series can often enjoy better performance and functionality. Except one of the caveats in using the Xe driver on Alchemist GPUs has been the lack of proper media acceleration support...
Five Proposals Now Being Weighed For Debian AI/LLM Usage
Last week Debian developers began considering a general resolution over AI large language model (LLM) usage within the Debian project. They are now up to weighing five different proposals for how to permit or block AI/LLM usage in the Debian space...
Intel Media Driver & VPL GPU Runtime 2026Q2 Updates Continue Prepping For Nova Lake
Over the past few Intel VA-API Media Driver releases we have seen preparations made for Nova Lake video acceleration. That has continued today with the Intel Media Driver and Intel oneVPL GPU Runtime releases today with their new quarterly feature releases...
GCC Compiler Bans AI Code Contribution But Sensibly
The GCC Steering Committee adopted a new AI policy this week, with a review planned for early 2027.
COSMIC Epoch 1.5 Brings More Fixes & Improvements To System76's Desktop
The System76 and Pop!_OS developers continue quickly iterating on their Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment...
[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for July 30, 2026
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition: Front : Hazard pointers; DFSG team; Swap devices; Netkit and BPF; BPF inlined functions; Fedora GRUB; gccrs. Briefs : RIP Dan Williams; Debian LLM resolution; Fedora 45 process; Codeberg LLM policy; GCC LLM policy; GNU Binutils 2.47; GNU C Library 2.44; Wayfire 0.11; Quotes; ... Announcements : Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
Mosaic is an i3-style auto-tiling extension for GNOME Shell
Mosaic brings i3-style automatic tiling to GNOME Shell without asking you to choose it permanently. Turn it on when you want windows to arrange themselves, turn it off when you want floating windows back. The extension works with GNOME 45 and up, adding a toggle to Quick Settings to enable the auto-tiling mode. When off, you’re in floating mode (which still has tiling features). Expand the toggle to access more options or get at Mosaic’s settings. It’s the on-demand nature that makes Mosaic more interesting as a tool. When the auto-tiling mode is active (the toggle is turned on) all […] You're reading Mosaic is an i3-style auto-tiling extension for GNOME Shell , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
DRM Format Modifiers For Old AMD GPUs Coming With Linux 7.3: Thanks Valve
Sent out today was another week's worth of features and other code changes to the AMDGPU kernel graphics driver and AMDKFD kernel compute driver. We are nearing the cut-off of new feature material for next month's Linux 7.3 kernel but there is some nice feature work in store for this week...
Steam Client Adds HDR Streaming On Steam Deck OLED, AV1 Video Streaming
Today's Steam client beta update brings some new game streaming enhancements for Linux gamers...
[$] Debugging information for inlined functions
BPF programs use BPF type format (BTF) debugging information in order to determine how to interact with functions in the kernel. Specifically, tracing a kernel function involves finding its address in the kernel's BTF section — but that doesn't work for functions that have been inlined, and therefore don't have a single, specific address. Alan Maguire wants to add information about inlined functions to BTF in order to allow them to be traced, and led a session on that topic at the 2026 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit .
Three stable kernels for Wednesday fix a single regression
Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 6.12.99 , 6.6.146 , 6.1.179 stable kernels. This batch of stable kernels includes a single fix for a regression caused by this commit . Users of those kernels should upgrade.
[$] Fedora approves a smaller GRUB
Leo Sandoval and Marta Lewandowska have put forward a change proposal for Fedora 45, which is expected in October, to provide a separate, slimmed-down version of GRUB for a niche use case. The new package would be in addition to the main GRUB package and would not replace it for the majority of Fedora users. The idea met with some resistance from Fedora contributors who thought that it would be better to use systemd-boot , or another modern bootloader, rather than trying to wrangle GRUB into a suitable state for the use case. The Fedora Engineering Steering Council (FESCo), however, voted to accept the change on July 7.
GCC steering committee announces AI policy
The GCC steering committee has announced that it has accepted an AI contributions policy recommended by the GCC AI policy working group. The policy, in part, states that the project will decline any " legally significant contributions which include LLM-generated content or are derived from LLM-generated content ". It uses the definition of "legally significant" from the GNU Project maintainer guidelines, which holds that the threshold is " around 15 lines of code and/or text " to qualify as significant for copyright purposes. GCC maintainers may, however, choose to accept legally significant test cases that are generated by an LLM. The policy does not forbid use of LLMs for research, analysis, bug discovery and reporting, patch review, etc. as long as the output is not included in contributions. The committee says that it expects the policy will evolve and will be revisited periodically.
Intel Graphics Driver Support For Xe3 "Peak Bandwidth Threshold" Feature In Linux 7.3
Intel today sent out their latest batch of kernel graphics driver updates that are ready for staging ahead of next month's Linux 7.3 merge window...
Good News Gamers! GOG is Officially Coming to Linux
They have hired someone to bring the GOG GALAXY client to the platform.
Ubuntu Now Has a Rolling Release Model! But Not For The Distro
A new virtualization stack is being introduced that gets updated every six months.
Valve Sponsors Work Bringing Open-Source RADV Driver To Windows
Valve has been sponsoring Collabora engineers with early phase, exploratory work for trying to bring the open-source Radeon Vulkan "RADV" driver to Microsoft Windows...
Vibe Coded X11 YSERVER Gets Steam Working, Full-Screen Games With Cinnamon
A new software creation that debuted this summer was YSERVER as a modern X11 server written in Rust largely by AI via Claude Code. This YSERVER implementation has continued implementing more X11 protocol and other functionality to get more desktop environments and apps working surprisingly okay on this vibe coded X11 server. YSERVER 1.4 is now available as the latest in this quest...
FreeBSD's Kernel Still Has A Bit Of GPL Code While Its Base User-Space Is GPL-Free
A few weeks ago there was excitement in the FreeBSD camp with FreeBSD 16 set to retire the last of its GPL code from the base system. While the retiring of the dialog code proclaimed that it was the last remaining piece of GPL software in the base system for FreeBSD, it turns out now that there is some GPL code within the FreeBSD kernel...
GCC To Decline Any Significant Contributions Made Via AI/LLMs - Except For Test Cases
The GCC Steering Committee announced today that they have accepted the recommended policy of the GCC AI Policy Working Group, which means no "legally significant" code contributions made via AI/LLM agents will be accepted into this open-source compiler...
ARCTIC Launches Its New Fan Controller That Already Has Mainline Linux Support
In over 22 years of Linux hardware reviews and testing at Phoronix, I have never been more excited for a fan controller... ARCTIC today launched their new Fan Controller and in making the product very unique for Linux users, it already has mainline Linux kernel support via a open-source driver contributed directly by ARCTIC...
Ubuntu 26.04 backports newer QEMU, libvirt every 6 months
Ubuntu’s hardware enablement (HWE) effort has been expanded to make newer virtualisation tech available to users on the current LTS release. If you’re not familiar with the HWE, it’s what brings newer versions of the Linux kernel, GPU drivers and select other foundational pieces from the current Ubuntu release to older LTS releases, allowing it to work with and boot on newer hardware. This new virtualization HWE stack from Canonical will allow users to run newer versions of QEMU, libvirt and related firmware on top of a reliable LTS base, refreshed every 6 months for 2 years, without needing to seek […] You're reading Ubuntu 26.04 backports newer QEMU, libvirt every 6 months , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
[$] Progress toward compiling Linux with gccrs
The gccrs project , which is creating a Rust frontend for the GCC compiler, has spent the first half of 2026 focusing on compiling the Linux kernel. By testing the compiler against the kernel crates, the development team has made significant progress toward generating correct code for other Rust programs. As detailed in the project's weekly and monthly reports, this effort has uncovered and resolved problems in areas such as attribute handling (described in the report for February ), name resolution, and resource management (both detailed in the May report ). Currently, the compiler can only handle simple standalone programs, but that situation could change rapidly in the coming months.
Starling: A New Linux Desktop Written In Swift, Own Wayland Compositor & Written With AI
There's yet another new open-source desktop option for Linux users in the era of new open-source projects largely written via AI/LLMs. Starling is this new project largely written via Claude and using the Swift programming language for the desktop while having its own Wayland compositor implemented in C. It also includes a built-in X11 server for handling X11 clients...