Introduced to the Linux 4.12 kernel's staging area back in 2017 was the Realtek RTL8723BS WiFi driver. The Realtek RTL8723BS is an 802.11 b/g/ SDIO WLAN adapter with Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity too. In the nearly decade since this driver was added to the staging area, it's continued to be cleaned up and with the Linux 7.0 merge window there is yet again a lot of work on cleaning up this WiFi driver for the old Realtek hardware...

Earlier this month we spotted the addition of a new GFX1170 GPU target in the AMDGPU LLVM back-end. Making this GFX1170 target interesting is that its marked as an APU/SoC part with "RDNA 4m" while being part of the GFX11 series. The GFX11 series is for RDNA3, GFX115x is for RDNA 3.5, and GFX12 is RDNA4. More ISA changes have now been committed to the AMDGPU LLVM back-end that make a few more instruction differences better aligned with RDNA4...

With the Linux 7.0 merge window beginning to calm down ahead of the 7.0-rc1 release due out on Sunday, one of the areas I was most excited about benchmarking on Linux 7.0 was looking for any performance gains with the new Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" given ongoing Intel Xe graphics driver improvements and other general kernel optimizations. Unfortunately, at large the Intel Panther Lake performance is moving in the wrong direction with the early Linux 7.0 benchmarking.

Long past due for retirement, the Linux 7.0 kernel has removed the obsolete Mwave driver for the 3780i ACP Modem found in some Pentium II era IBM ThinkPads from the 1990s...

Back in 2022 Intel announced OpenPGL as an open-source library for path guiding to help enhance the quality of path-based renderers. With time Blender began making use of OpenPGL and other industry interest and adoption. Unfortunately, Intel quietly ended work on OpenPGL in 2025 but has now fortunately found a new home...

A little bit of good news - Mewgenics from Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel is a clear hit, with it recently hitting a big sales milestone.

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Linux hardware vendor System76 has begun teasing a redesign of their Thelio chassis that is used by their modern desktops and workstations. Helping distinguish System76 from other Linux desktop/PC vendors has been their custom-engineered, built-in-the-USA enclosures and now they are preparing to launch a next-generation design...

The x86 platform driver updates were merged recently for the ongoing Linux 7.0 merge window. As is a common theme for platform-drivers-x86, a lot of the feature work is around Linux laptop drivers for enhancing the support on modern hardware...

Work continues for the Vibrant Visuals update to come to Minecraft Java, and as part of that they're switching the rendering from OpenGL to Vulkan.

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Earlier this month Dell sent over a review sample of their new UltraSharp U5223KW monitor. While the model number may not imply much, this monitor is outright incredible. The Dell UltraSharp U5223KW is a 52-inch 6K @ 120Hz monitor with integrated USB hub also working as a KVM switch, 140 Watt power delivery support for USB-C/Thunderbolt laptops, 2.5G Ethernet, and the color reproduction and visuals with this Dell 6K monitor are impeccable.

The generative AI expansion continues, with the Unity game engine being turned into a slop-making machine with an upcoming update.

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Calculate Linux is a Gentoo-based family of three distinguished distributions. Calculate Directory Server (CDS) is a solution that supports Windows and Linux clients via LDAP + SAMBA, providing proxy, mail and Jabbers servers with streamlined user management. Calculate Linux Desktop (CLD) is a workstation and client distribution (with a choice of Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE or Xfce desktops) that includes a wizard to configure a connection to Calculate Directory Server. Calculate Linux Scratch (CLS) is a live CD with a build framework for creating a custom distribution.

Hypixel Studios continue building up Hytale during Early Access with Patch 3 out now that adds in a ridiculous amount of additions to the game.

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The Linux 7.0 kernel is shipping improvements for LoongArch, the Chinese CPU architecture inspired by MIPS64 and RISC-V and has been showing much potential for their domestic PC manufacturing...

Component shortages are increasing thanks to the AI boom, and if you were thinking you could fall back on traditional HDDs - you would be wrong.

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Unfortunately, the HDMI Forum refused to allow HDMI 2.1+ features in the open source driver, but that hasn't stopped one developer.

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Asahi Linux developers have published a status report following the recent Linux 6.19 kernel release to outline recent progress and upcoming items around Apple Silicon support on Linux. This year will also mark five years that Asahi Linux has been around for bringing Linux to the Apple M-Series hardware...

As part of enhancing the FreeBSD experience on laptops and desktops, FreeBSD developers have been working toward adding a convenient desktop install option to their text-based installer for easily deploying the KDE Plasma desktop along with the necessary GPU drivers. After it didn't get wrapped up in time for the FreeBSD 15.0 release, that desktop installer option is now ready for testing...

Last year we began seeing Linux patches preparing the kernel for Intel Data Streaming Accelerator "DSA" 3.0 IP. Finally with the Linux 7.0 kernel those patches in updated form have now been merged...

All of the KVM virtualization feature changes were recently merged for the in-development Linux 7.0 kernel...

The Godot Engine team recently posted about more issues with "AI slop", including various pull requests that have become a big drain on resources.

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NVIDIA released their latest recommended driver for Linux with version 580.126.18 out now.

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GobMis GNU/Linux is a Linux distribution adopted to the needs of public administration offices in the Misiones province of Argentina. It is based on Devuan and uses the Xfce desktop environment. The distribution comes with a NextCloud and OpenVPN-based client software that connects to central work servers, as well as a selection of applications commonly used in government offices. The project uses free software and open document standards, and it also supports the objectives of sustainable development. GobMis GNU/Linux is available publicly and without any cost, inclusive of extensive documentation.

As a late stage change for GNOME 50 ahead of its official debut next month and following last week's GNOME 50 beta is plumbing the Mutter compositor for a new "sdr-native" color mode option...