It turns out there is actually people running modern versions of the Linux kernel in 2021 that also are using floppy disks.

While Loongson has been known for their MIPS-based Loongson chips that are open-source friendly and have long been based on MIPS, with MIPS now being a dead-end, the Chinese company has begun producing chips using its own "LoongArch" ISA. The first Loongson 3A5000 series hardware was just announced and thanks to the company apparently using the Phoronix Test Suite and OpenBenchmarking.org we have some initial numbers.

For those that find themselves using an Apple Magic Mouse, the finger-sliding scrolling experience should be improved come Linux 5.15.

Libre-SOC that started out as Libre RISC-V in aspiring to be an open-source software/hardware Vulkan accelerator but then renamed to Libre-SOC after changing over to the OpenPOWER architecture is now seeing test fabrication done using TSMC's 180nm process.

The Linux 5.14 input subsystem updates have landed with new hardware support and other changes.

Intel open-source engineers continue working on the bring-up around Compute Express Link (CXL) as the new open standard interconnect built off PCIe aiming to empower next-generation servers.

The POWER architecture updates have been submitted for the ongoing Linux 5.14 merge window with a few changes worth pointing out this round.

The MIPS code within the Linux kernel remains in a mature but rather stagnate state while the upstream MIPS architecture development has ceased and most vendors these days using Arm or RISC-V instead or even OpenPOWER prospects. But there still are some ongoing MIPS improvements to the Linux kernel.

The HID subsystem updates for Linux 5.14 continue improving consumer device support from newer AMD Ryzen laptops to multi-touch improvements.

Headlining the power management updates for the Linux 5.14 merge window is the Intel P-State CPU frequency scaling driver now being adapted to handle hybrid processors.

A proposal by NVIDIA engineers for the mainline Linux kernel would introduce the Hardware Timestamping Engine (HTE) subsystem.

For those wondering about the recent skyrocketing in LVFS/FWUPD usage for Linux firmware updates, it appears to be attributed to Dell pushing out a massive number of updates with more than one hundred models impacted by newly-disclosed BIOS/UEFI vulnerabilities.

Linux 5.14 is bringing a new input driver to support an open-source joystick that can be used for DIY electronics purposes and other use-cases. The schematics and firmware are open-source for building the joystick device yourself or can be purchased for about $10 USD.

The MSM DRM driver changes have been submitted to DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 5.14 cycle for improving this open-source Qualcomm Adreno kernel graphics/display driver.

The Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) with Fwupd has been serving on average around 40k~50k firmware updates per daay to Linux users relying on this cross-vendor, open-source firmware distribution service with FWUPD for applying firmware updates under Linux. But yesterday its usage just skyrocketed with more than 100,000 firmware updates in a single day... That's great for adoption but the motivation for the mass firmware updates may be something rough on the horizon.

In conjunction with supported Lenovo systems, a new "Think-LMI" driver is on its way to the mainline Linux kernel for allowing some BIOS/firmware settings to be accessed and configured within Linux.

For those that have been wanting to build a passively cooled PC or at least keeping the number of fans to a minimum, Noctua just officially announced the NH-P1 as their high-end passive cooler. It's a massive heatsink but aims to be able to cool higher-end AMD and Intel desktop processors.

A new feature point release is available for FWUPD for handling of system/component firmware and BIOS updating on Linux and other platforms.

Platform Runtime Mechanism was incorporated into the ACPI 6.4 specification earlier this year and allows moving some system management interrupt (SMI) handlers out of the system management mode (SMM) "black box" and into the OS/VMM execution context. With Linux 5.14 initial work on ACPI Platform Runtime Mechanism is set to land.

Launched last November was the Raspberry Pi 400 as a Raspberry Pi Keyboard Computer with effectively a Raspberry Pi 4 SBC embedded within the keyboard and attached to a large aluminum block for cooling. It's a great little device and beginning with Linux 5.14 looks like it should be playing fine with the mainline kernel.

As a quick follow-up to last year's L-shaped desk build for accommodating plenty of displays, laptops, and more, it's still working out very well.

Earlier this year was talk of Linux finally removing its legacy IDE subsystem that has been deprecated for years in favor of just maintaining the still-supported libata code for IDE support. The libata path is much better supported and matured for nearly two decades, but one of the holdouts was some Motorola 68000 series hardware -- like early Macintosh computers -- not being supported outside of the legacy context. That is finally set to change with Linux 5.14 so in turn the legacy IDE code will likely be able to be removed soon.

For those thinking about picking up a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 laptop powered by Intel's latest-generation "Tiger Lake" processors, that model will see its second fan now properly supported by the current Linux 5.13 cycle.

Earlier this year the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico with RP2040 microcontroller for doing embedded development. Now that RP2040 chip is being sold for just $1 USD via their resellers for those wanting to build their own electronics with this Raspberry Pi silicon.

With May quickly drawing to a close, here are some fresh Linux gaming benchmark figures for the latest AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards on their respective latest Linux graphics drivers while looking at the performance across a variety of OpenGL and Vulkan games/workloads.

Last year we wrote about Dell working on a hardware privacy driver for Linux as with 2021 laptops they are beginning to add hardware-based privacy buttons for disabling microphone and camera support. That Dell Hardware Privacy platform support is now set to be introduced to the mainline kernel with Linux 5.14.

The Rowhammer security exploit affecting DRAM memory modules has a new chapter with Google now detailing "half-double" as a new technique for exploit of system memory.

Raspberry Pi's Power over Ethernet HAT is beginning to face production challenges caused by the supply chain crisis so now the Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the PoE+ HAT that is not only easier to produce but also can provide more power in conjunction with supported switches.

It's sounding like a vendor is readying to publish a "big" new open-source driver, likely a GPU driver, for the Linux kernel.

ARM server vendor Ampere Computing has been working on an SSIF BMC-side driver for the Aspeed ASTC2500 baseboard management controller that they are looking to upstream in the Linux kernel.