Hardware News Archives

Added to the mainline Linux kernel last year was a Aquacomputer HWMON driver for initially supporting the German company's water-cooling pump under Linux with access to the fan speed, power, voltage, current, and coolant temperature. Since then that open-source driver developed by the community has been extended to cover an Aquacomputer fan controller and different models. For the Linux 6.1 cycle coming up there are more additions to the Aquacomputer driver.

For those running the embedded OpenWrt Linux operating system for routers and other networking devices or just running a memory-constrained MIPS Linux system, the forthcoming Multi-Gen LRU "MGLRU" kernel feature is looking very good on that front.

Mainlined to the Linux kernel less than one year ago was the "asus_wmi_ec_sensors" for supporting temperature / fan speed / CPU current sensor reading on a variety of newer ASUS motherboards. That driver is now being removed as a superior driver is taking over the ASUS motherboard sensor reading duties.

The UEFI Forum has published the UEFI 2.10 and ACPI 6.5 specifications to make these standards more adaptable to IoT platforms and other new device support from the LoongArch processor architecture to CXL memory support.

A number of noteworthy changes have begun queuing for the Human Interface Devices (HID) subsystem ahead of the Linux 6.1 merge window opening up in just over one month.

Thanks to the work of independent developer Luke Jones and as part of his Asusctl Linux project, ASUS laptops continue seeing better feature support on Linux and with the v6.1 cycle kicking off in October are more ASUS ROG laptop enhancements that have been readied.

Sound Open Fimware is already four years old as what started out as Intel pushing for more open firmware around audio DSPs. Since then we've seen Mediatek begin to support "SOF" as well as some AMD hardware supporting Sound Open Firmware. Out today is SOF 2.2.1 as the latest from this open-source project under the Linux Foundation umbrella.

Canonical kernel engineer Kai-Heng Feng posted a patch on Tuesday for capable laptops to switch their external monitor connections to be routed through a laptop's discrete GPU rather than the integrated GPU. With select laptops this can be done with an ACPI call but raises questions among upstream developers rather this change is indeed desirable.

A number of TUXEDO Computers' Linux laptops and Clevo laptops that have had keyboard and/or touchpad issues after system suspend cycles should be properly working now with Linux 6.0.

The Linux kernel continues making preparations around the very exciting Compute Express Link (CXL) thanks to the work of Intel engineers.

The ACPI and power management changes for the in-development Linux 6.0 landed this week with continued preparations for upcoming Intel and AMD hardware as well as improving existing hardware support.

For those with a newer ASUS gaming laptop boasting RGB lighting for the keyboard, that functionality could soon be working nicely thanks to work happening within the Linux kernel and the open-source Asusctl project.

Greg Kroah-Hartman has submitted all of the USB and Thunderbolt driver changes targeting the Linux 6.0 kernel of which there is a lot of new hardware enablement and enhancements to existing driver support.

With there recently being a number of new driver proposals for various AI-focused accelerators for the Linux kernel, currently they either go into "char/misc" as the random catch-all area of the kernel or within the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem traditionally used for GPU drivers. There's been yet another discussion happening this week over introducing a formal "accelerator" subsystem in the kernel for the growing number of AI devices that may be seeking to provide open-source drivers.

The HID subsystem updates for the Linux 6.0 (nee 5.20) kernel have been submitted.

Performance tuning work to the Linux kernel's Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) subsystem will pay off for embedded systems and other SPI-heavy platforms with Linux 6.0.

OpenRazer as the independent open-source project providing Linux drivers and user-space daemon for Razer peripherals is out with its newest feature release.

Ahead of the Linux 5.19 stable kernel being launched later today, a few pull requests have already begun queuing for the Linux 5.20 merge window. Among those early pulls are the hardware monitoring "HWMON" subsystem updates.

Introduced last year in Linux 5.15 was the Aquacomputer driver that started off as a hardware monitoring "HWMON" sensor driver supporting Aquacomputer's D5 Next water-cooling pump. In Linux 5.19 that driver was extended to support the Aquacomputer OCTO fan controller under Linux and now for v5.20 it's extended to support the company's QUADRO fan controller.

Open-source device manufacturer Raptor Computing Systems earlier this month teased their new FPGA-based open-source soft BMC product while today that "Arctic Tern" product has been formally announced.

The ASUS-EC-Sensors driver that provides better and faster hardware sensor reading for ASUS motherboards on Linux and premiered earlier this year in Linux 5.18 is continuing to broaden its list of supported ASUS motherboards.

Raptor Computing Systems that is known for their open-source POWER9-based Talos II and Blackbird systems that are fully open-source designs and running on free software down to the firmware level are preparing for a new product launch.

Earlier this year TUXEDO Computers announced their Stellaris 15 Gen4 laptop that when stationary could be water-cooled using their TUXEDO Aquaris water-cooling solution. Oddly for this Bavarian Linux PC retailer that was a Windows-only feature, but today they have announced Linux support for this laptop water cooling solution.

IBM this morning announced more Power10 servers being added to their portfolio, now including mid-range and scale-out platforms based on this latest POWER architecture.

At least some of Lenovo's new AMD Rembrandt powered laptops with Microsoft Pluton security co-processor are set by default to only trust Microsoft's key and not the Microsoft 3rd Party UEFI CA Key that Linux distributions and others use for UEFI Secure Boot support. Thus by default only Microsoft Windows will boot with the default firmware configuration on some new Lenovo laptops.

System76 has announced a new Lemur Pro laptop model that is now offering 12th Gen "Alder Lake" Intel processors while continuing to feature Coreboot firmware.

The XP-PEN Deco L is a recently launched graphics drawing tablet with its Linux support backed by a user-space binary blob package. But thanks to some USB reverse engineering from a community developer and discovering the hardware's "magic data" needed for initialization, this drawing tablet will be supported by a proper kernel driver in the next Linux kernel cycle.

While just a day prior Linus Torvalds was questioning the proposed "HTE" subsystem, today on this final day of the Linux 5.19 merge window he decided to land this new subsystem.

Last month System76 and HP began teasing an HP developer laptop with AMD Ryzen SoC and running Pop!_OS while today that HP Dev One laptop has formally launched.

The PCI subsystem changes have landed for the in-development Linux 5.19 kernel.

As part of ISC 2022 happening this week in Hamburg, Germany, the new Top500 supercomputer and Green500 energy efficiency lists have been published.

The HID subsystem changes were merged this week into the Linux 5.19 kernel.

The power management, ACPI, and thermal control updates are ready for Linux 5.19. This cycle there is a lot of PM/thermal work as usual on the Arm side while Intel also continues with a lot of changes from new hardware support to improving overheat handling of laptops for S0ix handling.

In recent kernel versions there has been an uptick in new driver activity around improving hardware sensor monitoring support for AMD/Intel desktop motherboards, but still it's generally behind that of the support found under Microsoft Windows. With Linux 5.19 there is more hardware monitoring "HWMON" subsystem work with improving sensor coverage on various motherboards and other components.

The Motorola 68000, Xtensa, and C-SKY processor architectures all saw notable additions for the in-development Linux 5.19 kernel.

To date Pop!_OS has been System76's own Ubuntu derivative pre-loaded onto their various laptops and desktops. Rather interestingly, HP is preparing to launch a new laptop that will make use of Pop!_OS.

The Framework Laptop is a modular laptop design that launched a year ago and is designed to be upgrade-friendly and allows users for switching out lots of components from different ports to the motherboard itself. And the laptop is Linux-friendly -- see my Framework Laptop review from last year. For new systems or those wishing to upgrade their laptop's motherboard, Intel Core 12th Gen "Alder Lake" is now available.

With the Linux 5.18 kernel reaching stable in the next week or two there is basic support for Tesla's FSD chip. That Samsung-based SoC for powering Tesla's full-self driving technology has the basic support pieces in place for this kernel while Samsung engineers are working on ironing out other portions of the SoC support for future kernel releases.

For those using Keychron keyboards for being wireless, mechanical keyboards they will be better supported with the Linux 5.19 kernel.

Last month was the surprising news of open-source Coreboot working on a readily available Intel Alder Lake motherboard. That work for the MSI PRO Z690-A WiFi DDR4 motherboard is being carried out by independent firmware consulting firm 3mdeb and using the Dasharo open-source firmware distribution with Coreboot.

In addition to the ASpeed AST2600 DisplayPort support sent in as part of this week's drm-misc-next updates intended for Linux 5.19, another prominent addition worthy of its own article is the Rockchip VOP2 display driver being mainlined.

Adding to the growing list of changes expected for introduction in Linux 5.19 is the thermal subsystem adding a new thermal library, daemon, and "thermometer" temperature capture tool to the kernel's source tree.

The "AST" DRM/KMS driver for ASpeed chips in Linux 5.19 is adding support for DisplayPort outputs... Leading to the era of hopefully seeing more servers with DisplayPort outputs to eventually replace VGA that is still very common on server platforms for display purposes.

The Lenovo ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II is a standalone keyboard that mimics the traditional ThinkPad notebook's keyboard that comes complete with an integrated TrackPoint. With the Linux 5.19 kernel will be better support for this standalone ThinkPad keyboard.

Sent in as a "fix" this week for the Linux 5.18 kernel and to be found in tomorrow's 5.18-rc5 release is supporting sensor readings with the Gigabyte-WMI driver for the Gigabyte B660 GAMING X DDR4 motherboard.

While most of the Linux pre-loaded laptops these days ship with GNOME or a desktop derived from GNOME components, the Kubuntu Focus has been one of the most notable exceptions for using KDE Plasma and also optimized for workflows around deep learning, programming, dev ops, and more. Today the company announced the Kubuntu Focus M2 Gen4 laptop with upgraded hardware.

It's been a rough year for floppy disk support on Linux and goes to show the state of seldom maintained to unmaintained code.

Being sent in as a fix for Linux 5.18-rc3 is supporting various marine navigation keycodes with at least Garmin's boat steering wheels and marine navigation displays running Linux.

Back in February was the interesting work laid out by Red Hat engineers for their looking at using eBPF within the kernel's HID subsystem. A new patch series attempting this innovative use of the in-kernel JIT virtual machine has been published.

While early on DisplayLink's USB2-based devices were friendly with Linux and had upstream open-source driver support, their newer USB3-based display hardware has relied on a binary driver focused on just supporting Ubuntu. Last month DisplayLink released an updated version of that binary blob ahead of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.