Hardware News Archives

While many would argue it's past due for the Linux kernel's floppy disk code to be gutted from the mainline code-base, instead it's seeing improvements in 2020 ahead of the Linux 5.7 kernel... The same kernel where Intel stabilized Tiger Lake graphics, AMD preparing Zen 3 support, a new exFAT driver, and a multitude of other modern improvements is also now seeing floppy work.

Kernel patches pending that might see mainlining for the upcoming Linux 5.7 window provide ASpeed XDMA engine support for the plethora of AST2500 BMCs found on server platforms and the forthcoming AST2600-based platforms.

For those that have been looking out for an AMD Linux laptop powered by a Ryzen 4000 series processor, Acer is set to launch a new laptop at least in Germany that could be quite appealing to Linux users.

In our many benchmarks of the System76 Thelio Major over the past month (and more on the way!) with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, besides the sheer power of that 64-core / 128-thread processor, many are quick to comment on the pictures of the System76 chassis that they manufacturer in-house. This week the company is expanding their line-up of System76 Thelio cases.

IBM last week made the bold announce that they will be transitioning to LLVM/Clang-based compilers across their hardware portfolio for C, C++, and Fortran compilation.

For those that have managed to get their hands on the Pinebook Pro as the $199 ARM 64-bit laptop powered by a Rockchip RK3399 SoC and with 4GB of RAM, 1080p panel, 64GB eMMC, and other decent features for the price, mainline Linux kernel support could be in order possibly even for Linux 5.7.

The latest benchmarks for your viewing pleasure are looking at the dual Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 performance up against the dual AMD EPYC 7742 CPUs while using the in-development Linux 5.6 kernel as the first time trying out these highest-end server processors on this new kernel debuting as stable in about one month's time.

Linux-friendly industrial PC vendor OnLogic has announced an expanded line-up of their mini PC offerings with Ryzen Embedded processors and also word that next quarter they will be getting into EPYC-powered edge servers.

Following the PCI Express 6.0 announcement from last summer that called for 64 GT/s transfer rates, version 0.5 of the PCIe 6.0 specification is now out for evaluation.

While two weeks past the Linux 5.6 merge window some late changes for the C-SKY CPU architecture were accepted today.

For some interesting Sunday debates in the forums, how important to you is having a completely open CPU design? Additionally, is POWER dead? This comes following interesting remarks by an industry leader this weekend.

Broadcom developers have been recently volleying open-source Linux driver patches for enabling their "VK Accelerators" on the platform.

While web-based GUIs for system management on server platforms with BMCs is far from anything new, Raptor Computing Systems with their libre POWER9 systems does now have a full-functioning web-based solution for their OpenBMC-powered systems and still being fully open-source.

More high-end audio gear is finally transitioning from Firewire to USB-C and one of these new high-end audio interfaces will be supported by the Linux 5.7 kernel this spring.

Last summer it was announced that IBM's POWER ISA would be open-source and the OpenPOWER Foundation joining the Linux Foundation. Finally we're getting a look at how the end-user license agreement (EULA) is looking for those wishing to make use of the POWER CPU instruction set architecture.

It looks like the Cavium/Marvell OCTEON MIPS-based processor support is being restored for Linux systems after some of its drivers were briefly removed.

There is a lot of new Arm SoCs and boards/platforms to be supported by the Linux 5.6 kernel.

In recent Linux kernel releases we have seen a new gaming keyboard driver, better wireless device support, and a number of new device additions to the Logitech HID driver. With Linux 5.6, there is more Logitech work in tow but not quite as much as the recent kernels.

The new "cpuidle_cooling" thermal driver in Linux 5.6 is similar to Intel's PowerClamp driver and RAPL framework but is generic for working across CPUs/architectures as an idle cooling driver to cool down CPUs/SoCs by injecting idle cycles at run-time.

Adding to the Linux 5.6 excitement is the hardware enablement of the MIPS-based Ingenic X1000 SoC.

Ahead of USB4 devices expected to begin appearing later this year, the Linux 5.6 kernel is wired up with initial USB4 support.

It turns out Sony is now maintaining the mainline Linux kernel's hid-sony input driver in an "official capacity now across various devices." This hid-sony driver is what traditionally has supported the various PlayStation controllers and other input devices for their hardware. But their newfound "official" support for this open-source input driver could lead to interesting predicaments.

As part of the Linux 5.6 development dance, Ingo Molnar began sending in all of the pull requests this morning for the different areas of the Linux kernel he oversees.

Linux sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai of SUSE today sent in all of the sound driver updates for this next version of the Linux kernel.

Linux power management subsystem maintainer Rafael Wysocki is punctual as always in sending in his feature pull requests for the new merge window.

Chris Lattner, the founder of the LLVM compiler stack and sub-projects like the Clang C/C++ compiler front-end, has joined RISC-V firm SiFive.

More than a decade after Apple acquired the CUPS source-code and its lead developer, that developer, Michael Sweet, recently parted ways with Apple.

The MIPS-based SGI Octane IRIX workstations were first introduced in the late 90's while recently there has been a resurgence in the work on getting these vintage PCs running off a mainline Linux kernel.

Driven by curiosity sake, here is a look at how the total number of AMD and Intel developers contributed to the upstream Linux kernel during the 2010s as well as the total number of commits each year from the respective hardware vendors.

When it comes to the Zhaoxin x86-compatible processors coming out of VIA's joint venture in Shanghai, their forthcoming 7-series (KX-7000) has hardware mitigations in place for some CPU vulnerabilities.

Here is another long overdue kernel change... For more than a decade there have been patches trying to get SATA/SCSI drive temperature monitoring working nicely within the Linux kernel but none of that work ever made it through for mainlining. That has left various user-space tools to provide the functionality, but in doing so that has required root access and not to mention the need to first install said utilities. Well, with Linux 5.6 in 2020, there is finally a proper drive temperature driver for disks and solid-state drives with temperature sensors.

One of the many devices being pursued by the PINE64 crew is the PineTab open-source ARM 64-bit tablet. Thanks to being another Allwinner A64 product and not using any too bleeding edge tech, the PineTab has patches available to get it running off a mainline Linux kernel.

Adding to the many changes on the way with Linux 5.6 is the Rockchip DRM display driver supporting the PX30 SoC.

Ahead of this week's Consumer Electronics Show, the Wi-Fi Alliance has announced WiFi 6E.

Up to now the most recent Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop with Ubuntu Linux has been using Comet Lake processors while now the 10th Generation XPS 13 Developer Edition has been announced with Ice Lake processors.

For those interested in benchmarks of the $99+ PineBook ARM Linux laptop, more results continue to be uploaded on OpenBenchmarking.org.

Purism has shared an update on their software work for the Librem 5 Linux smartphone over the course of last month.

The Ethernet driver for supporting Cavium's Octeon SoCs is slated for removal in the Linux 5.6 cycle.

While there still is at least a full month to go before seeing the Linux 5.5 stable release and that marking the opening of the Linux 5.6 merge window, already a fair amount of HID subsystem work is queuing in its "-next" tree ahead of the first full kernel cycle of 2020.

Coinciding with the release of Linux Mint 19.3 is the debut of the MintBox3 Linux Mint pre-loaded small form factor desktop computer that is fan-less.

If Purism didn't already have their hands full enough in working on the Librem 5 to make a fully functional Linux smartphone, the company announced today a forthcoming price hike for the device while also announcing their expansion into the server space...

With most all-in-one water cooling setups I am used to seeing no Linux support at all either from the vendor themselves or any third-party/community reverse-engineered support, but in the case of the NZXT Kraken X series with the independent GKraken open-source software is easily the best experience I've had to date in managing water cooling setups from the Linux desktop.

Unisoc, the Chinese SoC provider for smartphones that is part of the Tsinghua Unigroup, has published a new open-source DRM display driver that ultimately they are looking to get into the mainline kernel.

Purism announced today a Librem 5 USA model of their smartphone that has the same specifications and features of their Librem 5 Linux smartphone but manufactured in the US. That pushes the 720x1440 display, i.MX8M, 3GB RAM, 32GB eMMC, 802.11n device from $699 USD to $1,199 USD. Update: Errr the price was raised now apparently to $1999 USD.

With the PowerPC changes for the Linux 5.5 kernel comes the initial infrastructure work on preparing to be able to handle a Secure Boot implementation for POWER9 hardware.

We weren't too enthusiastic about the performance of Amazon's initial Graviton ARM-based CPU cores offered via their Elastic Compute Cloud, but their next-gen Graviton2 CPUs that are "coming soon" should be much more capable for good ARM Linux performance.

Imagination today announced the IMG A-Series as their next-generation GPU cores and architecture that deliver 2.5x faster performance for the same area and same power to their current-generation PowerVR graphics processors.

The HID area of the kernel is always eventful when it comes to improving the input device support for newer hardware. With Linux 5.5 the HID story means a new Logitech driver and other enhancements.

Sent in on Thursday were the platform-drivers-x86 updates targeting the Linux 5.5 kernel.

Earlier this week as part of his series of pull requests, Greg Kroah-Hartman has submitted the USB subsystem updates for the in-development Linux 5.5 kernel.