Hardware News Archives


2,112 Hardware open-source and Linux related news articles on Phoronix since 2006.

Linux Driver Preparing Support For ASUS Screenpad On High-End Laptops
Linux Driver Preparing Support For ASUS Screenpad On High-End Laptops

In addition to the ASUS laptop improvements for Linux 6.6 with the ASUS-WMI driver, additional feature work is on the way for future kernel versions with one of those interesting additions being support for the ASUS Screenpad. Some higher-end ASUS laptops feature a secondary screen "screenpad" on the laptops and the pending ASUS-WMI driver patch will properly support it.

8 September 2023 - Secondary Screen - 5 Comments
New ASUS Laptop Features & HP BIOS Settings Driver For Linux 6.6
New ASUS Laptop Features & HP BIOS Settings Driver For Linux 6.6

Merged a few days ago for the ongoing Linux 6.6 merge window were the x86 platform driver updates, which bring a few interesting Intel/AMD laptop improvements as well as a new driver to support altering select HP BIOS settings from within the confines of Linux.

7 September 2023 - x86 Platform Drivers - 3 Comments
XPad Driver Extends Gaming Controller Support With Linux 6.6
XPad Driver Extends Gaming Controller Support With Linux 6.6

In addition to the HID updates bringing rumble for Google's Stadia controller and other gaming peripheral improvements, the input subsystem updates were sent out this week for Linux 6.6 that bring more enhancements for Linux gamers. In particular, the common XPad driver saw some additions for this next kernel version.

7 September 2023 - XPad + Other Input Drivers - Add A Comment
Linux 6.6 Adds New Sound Support For AMD Van Gogh, Valve Galileo
Linux 6.6 Adds New Sound Support For AMD Van Gogh, Valve Galileo

The sound subsystem and audio driver updates were merged last week for the ongoing Linux 6.6 merge window. Interesting about the sound work this cycle is a fair amount of work around AMD Van Gogh platforms, which so far is just the APU that's known to power Valve's Steam Deck.

5 September 2023 - Linux 6.6 Sound - 14 Comments
Linux 6.6 Will Be Able To Handle Temperature Reporting When Having More Than 32 DIMMs
Linux 6.6 Will Be Able To Handle Temperature Reporting When Having More Than 32 DIMMs

The Linux kernel's "dimmtemp" driver allows for reporting memory temperatures with capable memory modules and when exposed by the Intel processor's PECI (Platform Environment Control Interface). Currently though the DIMM temperature driver is hard-coded to only allow reporting up to 32 DIMMs while a change queued for Linux 6.6 will extend that limit.

7 August 2023 - Memory Temperatures - 12 Comments
Linux 6.6 To Make It Easier To Enable Partial SMT For POWER
Linux 6.6 To Make It Easier To Enable Partial SMT For POWER

While Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) on Intel/AMD x86_64 processors is limited to providing one additional thread per core, SMT on IBM POWER hardware can provide 4-way and even 8-way SMT for some processor models. With Linux 6.6 the /sys/devices/system/cpu/smt/control interface is being extended to allow greater control over managing partial SMT states in cases of the CPUs supporting more than 2-way SMT at Linux run-time.

2 August 2023 - Partial SMT States - 8 Comments
Per-Policy CPU Performance Boosting Proposed For Linux
Per-Policy CPU Performance Boosting Proposed For Linux

For processors supporting CPU performance boosting with higher performance states available beyond the base states, Linux allows toggling the boosting on a per-CPU basis. However, a new patch proposed this week would allow per-policy performance boosting where capable.

25 July 2023 - Per-Policy CPU Performance Boosting - 1 Comment
GPU VA Manager To Land In Linux 6.6
GPU VA Manager To Land In Linux 6.6

The DRM subsystem is slated to pickup a GPU Virtual Address "VA" Manager with the Linux 6.6 kernel that is motivated by work around Vulkan sparse memory binding requirements.

21 July 2023 - GPU Virtual Address Manager - 8 Comments
Imagination Tech Rolls Out Latest PowerVR Rogue DRM Kernel Driver Patches
Imagination Tech Rolls Out Latest PowerVR Rogue DRM Kernel Driver Patches

Imagination Technologies today published their fourth iteration of their in-development PowerVR DRM kernel graphics driver targeting their Rogue architecture and future graphics IP. This open-source kernel driver ultimately will go along with their PowerVR Vulkan driver they continue developing within the Mesa code-base.

14 July 2023 - Imagination PowerVR DRM Driver - Add A Comment
Linux 6.5 Brings Improvements To Firewire Support
Linux 6.5 Brings Improvements To Firewire Support

While it's likely been years since most of you touched any Firewire devices, for those still having any old DV cameras around or professional audio hardware with an IEEE-1394 interface, Linux 6.5 is bringing improvements to its Firewire subsystem that until recently has been rather dormant for years.

4 July 2023 - Linux 6.5 - 30 Comments
Linux 6.5 Brings WiFi & Bluetooth Support For The MIPS Creator CI20
Linux 6.5 Brings WiFi & Bluetooth Support For The MIPS Creator CI20

Nearly a decade ago when there was more hope for the MIPS open-source ecosystem and the initial growth of lower-cost single board computers the MIPS Creator CI20 was launched by Imagination Tech. It wasn't too successful and MIPS development has since reached the end of the road, but finally with Linux 6.5 is the Bluetooth and WiFi on this MIPS single board computer going to finally be supported by the mainline kernel.

28 June 2023 - MIPS Creator CI20 - 2 Comments
Linux's Corsair PSU Driver Being Updated For Newer Power Supplies
Linux's Corsair PSU Driver Being Updated For Newer Power Supplies

Added to the Linux kernel back in 2020 was a community-written Corsair power supply driver for exposing various sensor data that their higher-end PSUs make available via a USB interface. This reverse-engineered "corsair-psu" driver has continued to be improved upon and adding support for newer Corsair PSUs. A new patch out this weekend extends the corsair-psu driver for handling newer 2022~2023 model power supplies.

24 June 2023 - Corsair PSU Driver - 18 Comments
Intel Continues Finalizing UEFI Unaccepted Memory Support For Linux
Intel Continues Finalizing UEFI Unaccepted Memory Support For Linux

With Intel TDX and AMD SEV-SNP for better securing virtual machines on the mainline Linux kernel, memory is accepted/initialized immediately at boot time by the VMs although the capability exists to have "unaccepted memory" where that memory is only dealt with by the VMs later on or on an as-needed basis. For two years now Intel engineers have been working on this unaccepted memory support and this week posted their thirteenth iteration of these fundamental Linux kernel patches.

3 June 2023 - Unaccepted Memory - 2 Comments
1-Wire "w1" Subsystem Seeing More Activity With Linux 6.5
1-Wire "w1" Subsystem Seeing More Activity With Linux 6.5

The Linux 1-Wire "w1" subsystem is used for supporting drivers with hardware that communicates via a single wire (plus ground) in a simple master-slave configuration The Linux kernel has drivers such as for W1 over GPIO, i2c to W1 bridge, and supporting some very old hardware. The W1 subsystem hasn't seen much work recently while for the upcoming Linux 6.5 cycle will be seeing a larger update.

2 June 2023 - Linux W1 - 4 Comments
Loongson Extending Etnaviv Driver For PCI Device Support
Loongson Extending Etnaviv Driver For PCI Device Support

Chinese hardware vendor Loongson is working on extending the open-source, reverse-engineered Etnaviv Linux kernel graphics driver so it has PCI device support and in turn will work with their hardware based on the Vivante graphics IP.

1 June 2023 - Vivante Graphics - 16 Comments
OnLogic Taps Intel Raptor Lake For 1U Axial AC101 Edge Server
OnLogic Taps Intel Raptor Lake For 1U Axial AC101 Edge Server

The folks at OnLogic have released the Axial AC101 as a new edge server offering that is powered by Intel Core 13th Gen "Raptor Lake" processors and this BMC-enabled, shallow-depth server can accommodate up to 150 Watt PCI Express expansion cards in aiming to make this compact edge server ideal for machine learning, AI, and other IoT use-cases.

17 May 2023 - OnLogic Axial AC101 - 2 Comments
Loongson Begins Posting Linux Patches For 3A6000 Series CPUs
Loongson Begins Posting Linux Patches For 3A6000 Series CPUs

While the Loongson 3A6000 processors have yet to be officially launched, rumors since last year put it on target for launching in the first half of this year and some claims that there is such performance uplift that these Chinese CPUs could rival AMD Zen 3 or Intel Tiger Lake levels of performance. Ahead of the 3A6000 series launch, Linux patches have begun appearing for these next-gen LoongArch processors.

16 May 2023 - Loongson 3A6000 - 19 Comments
Failing A PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD In Less Than 3 Minutes Without Extra Cooling
Failing A PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD In Less Than 3 Minutes Without Extra Cooling

Following the Corsair MP700 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD review under Linux with many readers being surprised by file-system errors when not adding extra cooling like the motherboard's passive M.2 heatsink and being curious about the situation myself, here are more tests of ultimately how this drive will reliably hit file-system errors in three minutes or less without added cooling.

10 May 2023 - File-System Errors - 46 Comments

2112 Hardware news articles published on Phoronix.