Velocity Micro, the premier builder of award-winning enthusiast desktops, laptops, high performance computing solutions, and professional workstations announces the immediate availability of a line of Linux powered PCs preinstalled with Ubuntu 22.04. Systems are designed for a wide range of customers and use cases such as individual enthusiasts, CAD and content creation professionals, machine learning/AI, and enterprise, to bring the flexibility and security of an open source OS platform into the mainstream. Desktops start at $1,429 with Linux laptops starting at $1,199. Shipments begin immediately.

"We've been preinstalling various flavors of Linux on custom server and workstation builds for years, which has really afforded us the opportunity to get hands-on to learn the OS," said Randy Copeland, President and CEO of Velocity Micro. "We're excited to bring what we've learned to market and introduce our customers to Ubuntu Linux."

Ben Skeggs, a lead maintainer of the open-source NVIDIA GPU driver for Linux kernel called Nouveau, has joined NVIDIA. Working as an open-source contributor for the Nouveau driver for more than a decade, Ben Skeggs has achieved the remarkable feat of working to support the NVIDIA GPU hardware on open-source drivers. Before joining NVIDIA, Ben Skeggs worked at Red Hat up until September 18th of 2023. At that date, he posted that he was resigning from Red Hat and stepping back from the Nouveau open-source driver development. However, this news today comes as a bit of an interesting development, as Ben Skeggs is going to NVIDIA, which has been reluctant in the past to support open-source drivers.

Now, he is able to continue working on the driver directly from NVIDIA. He posted a set of 156 patches to the driver, affecting tens of thousands of lines of code. And he signed it all off from the official NVIDIA work address. This signals a potential turn in NVIDIA's approach to open-source software development, where the company might pay more attention to the movement and potentially hire more developers to support these projects. Back in 2012, NVIDIA had a different stance on open-source development, infamously provoking the creator of the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds, to issue some snide remarks to the company. Hopefully, better days are ahead for the OSS world of driver development and collaboration with tech giants.

Imagination Technologies today unveils the next product in the Catapult CPU IP range, the Imagination APXM-6200 CPU: a RISC-V application processor with compelling performance density, seamless security and the artificial intelligence capabilities needed to support the compute and intuitive user experience needs for next generation consumer and industrial devices.

"The number of RISC-V based devices is skyrocketing with over 16Bn units forecast by 2030, and the consumer market is behind much of this growth" says Rich Wawrzyniak, Principal Analyst at SHD Group. "One fifth of all consumer devices will have a RISC-V based CPU by the end of this decade. Imagination is set to be a force in RISC-V with a strategy that prioritises quality and ease of adoption. Products like APXM-6200 are exactly what will help RISC-V achieve the promised success."

In a interesting discovery that sent a series of shockwaves through the Linux community, Andres Freund, Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft, located a malicious backdoor in the widely used compression tool called "xz Utils." The backdoor, introduced in versions 5.6.0 and 5.6.1 of the utility, can break the robust encryption provided by the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, allowing unauthorized access to affected systems. What Andres Freund found is that the latest version of xz Utils is taking 0.5 seconds in SSH on his system, while the older system with the older version took 0.1 seconds for simple processing, prompting the user to investigate and later send a widespread act for caution. While there are no confirmed reports of the backdoored versions being incorporated into production releases of major Linux distributions, the incident has raised serious concerns among users and developers alike.

Red Hat and Debian, two of the most well-known Linux distribution developers, have reported that their recently published beta releases, including Fedora 40, Fedora Rawhide, and Debian testing, unstable, and experimental distributions, used at least one of the affected versions of xz Utils. According to Red Hat officials, the first signs of the backdoor were introduced in a February 23 update, which added obfuscated (unreadable) code to xz Utils. A subsequent update the following day introduced functions for deobfuscating the code and injecting it into code libraries during the utility's update process. The malicious code has been cleverly hidden only in the tarballs, which target upstream releases of Linux distributions.

Leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, has successively released software based on Microsoft Windows 10/11 and Canonical Ubuntu Linux platforms since the end of last year, which can help users quickly download, install and configure artificial intelligence software. After receiving great response from the market, ASRock has revealed the 2024 Q1 update of AI QuickSet today, adding two new artificial intelligence (AI) tools, Whisper Desktop and AudioCraft, allowing users of ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards to experience more diverse artificial intelligence (AI) applications!

ASRock AI QuickSet software tool 1.2.4 Windows version supports Microsoft Windows 10/11 64-bit operating system, while Linux version 1.1.6 supports Canonical Ubuntu 22.04.4 Desktop (64-bit) operating system, through ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards and AMD ROCm software platform provide powerful computing capabilities to support a variety of well-known artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The 1.2.4 Windows version supports image generation tools such as DirectML Shark and Stable Diffusion web UI, as well as the newly added Whisper Desktop speech recognition tool; and the 1.1.6 Linux version supports Image/Manga Translator, Stable Diffusion CLI & web UI image generation tool, and Text generation web UI Llama 2 text generation tool using Meta Llama 2 language model, Ultralytics YOLOv8 object recognition tool, and the newly added AudioCraft audio generation tool.

The Orange Pi Neo handheld gaming PC was first exhibited in Europe earlier in the year—where the Manjaro Linux team handed out demo units to attendees of FOSDEM. The initial batch of Orange Pi Neo handhelds were specced with AMD's ubiquitous Ryzen 7 7840U "Phoenix" mobile APU, but a recent official launch event—in China—revealed a new-gen alternative. The Manjaro Linux social media account summarized this weekend presentation: "we launched Orange Pi Neo in Shenzhen. The Ryzen 7 7840U model (16 GB/512 GB) will be 4099 CNY / 499 USD and Ryzen 7 8840U (16 GB/512 GB) model starts at 4499 CNY / 599 USD."

The newly unveiled price points have been deemed quite reasonable and competitive—when lined up against the nearest competition. The Manjaro Linux distribution could be a sticking point for more discerning OS-heads, but alternative operating routes could be outlined by online communities in the near future. The $599 AMD "Hawk Point" Ryzen 7 8840U-based option seems to be slightly overpriced, when you consider the marginal performance improvements it levies when compared to the very similarly appointed Ryzen 7 7840U APU. The "modernized" processor nets you a more potent XDNA NPU, but both product generations house Team Red's Radeon 780M iGPU. Orange Pi and Manjaro are likely testing the waters with an initial Chinese market launch—we hope to see a wider global rollout in the coming months.

Chinese e-commerce and cloud giant Alibaba announced its plans to launch a server-grade RISC-V processor later this year, and it showcased a RISC-V-powered laptop running an open-source operating system. The announcements were made by Alibaba's research division, the Damo Academy, at the recent Xuantie RISC-V Ecological Conference in Shenzhen. The upcoming server-class processor called the Xuantie C930, is expected to be launched by the end of 2024. While specific details about the chip have not been disclosed, it is anticipated to cater to AI and server workloads. This development is part of Alibaba's ongoing efforts to expand its RISC-V portfolio and reduce reliance on foreign chip technologies amidst US export restrictions. To complement the C930, Alibaba is also preparing a Xuantie 907 matrix processing unit for AI, which could be an IP block inside an SoC like the C930 or an SoC of its own.

In addition to the C930, Alibaba showcased the RuyiBOOK, a laptop powered by the company's existing T-Head C910 processor. The C910, previously designed for edge servers, AI, and telecommunications applications, has been adapted for use in laptops. Strangely, the RuyiBOOK laptop runs on the openEuler operating system, an open-source version of Huawei's EulerOS, which is based on Red Hat Linux. The laptop also features Alibaba's collaboration suite, Ding Talk, and the open-source office software Libre Office, demonstrating its potential to cater to the needs of Chinese knowledge workers and consumers without relying on foreign software. Zhang Jianfeng, president of the Damo Academy, emphasized the increasing demand for new computing power and the potential for RISC-V to enter a period of "application explosion." Alibaba plans to continue investing in RISC-V research and development and fostering collaboration within the industry to promote innovation and growth in the RISC-V ecosystem, lessening reliance on US-sourced technology.

Playtron is new a startup company put together by Kirt McMaster—former CEO plus co-founder of CyanogenMod—and a couple of industry veterans. Sean Hollister, senior editor and founding member of The Verge, has gained exclusive access to early Playtron material. The firm's logically named PlaytronOS is a Linux-based platform, compatible with ARM and x86 architectures—according to official hype material it is a "light weight gaming OS optimized for a new generation of powerful handheld gaming PCs… and beyond. Play all your games from every store… Steam… Epic and more." Hollister indicated that he was "cautiously optimistic" about Playtron's future prospects, following discussions conducted with development partners, and rifling through internal project documentation.

The Verge report stated that: "Playtron is coming out of stealth with $10 million in funding, roughly 18 employees, and a plan to challenge Microsoft, Valve, and Apple for the next hundred million gamers." The startup has presented lofty ambitions—their operating system (currently in Alpha) is said to run on all of the available mainstream portable gaming platforms. By the end of 2024: "you will...be able to install Playtron on your favorite handheld PC for the best gaming experience ever." McMaster and his colleagues are preparing "native devices" for an estimated launch in 2025—The Verge's exclusive coverage features an official mock-up of a 5G-enabled alternative to Valve's popular Steam Deck family.

Thanks to Phoronix, we have discovered that AMD has recently released initial patches for performance monitoring and events related to their upcoming Zen 5 processors in the Linux kernel. These patches, sent out for review on the kernel mailing list, provide the necessary JSON files for PMU (Performance Monitoring Unit) events and metrics that will be exposed through the Linux perf tooling. As the patches consist of JSON additions and do not risk regressing existing hardware support, there is a possibility that they could be included in the upcoming Linux v6.9 kernel cycle. This would allow developers and enthusiasts to access detailed performance data for Zen 5 CPUs once they become available, helping with optimization and analysis of the next-generation processors.

The release of these patches follows AMD's publication of performance monitor counter documentation for AMD Family 1Ah Model 00h to 0Fh processors last week, confirming that these models represent the upcoming Zen 5 lineup. While Linux kernel 6.8 already includes some elements of Zen 5 CPU support, the upstream Linux enablement for these next-generation AMD processors is an ongoing process. Upon Phoronix examining the Zen 5 core and uncore events, as well as the metrics and mappings, it appears that they are mainly similar to those found in the current Zen 4 processors. This suggests that AMD has focused on refining and optimizing the performance monitoring capabilities of its new architecture rather than introducing significant changes. As the launch of Zen 5 CPUs draws closer, we await to see the performance and capabilities of these next-generation processors. With performance monitoring also getting a push, this could be a sign that Zen 5 launch is nearing.

AMD recently tried to add support for key HDMI 2.1 features like 4K@120 Hz and 5K@240 Hz to their open-source Linux graphics driver called AMDGPU. They invested engineering resources over several months to prototype the necessary code internally before publishing. The goal was to showcase HDMI 2.1 capabilities and get the implementation approved by the HDMI Forum. Unfortunately, the Forum ultimately rejected AMD's request, blocking Linux users of new AMD Radeon GPUs from utilizing those cutting-edge display features over HDMI. In comments, AMD stated: "The HDMI Forum has rejected our proposal unfortunately. At this time an open source HDMI 2.1 implementation is not possible without violating HDMI Forum requirements." This outcome comes as a major disappointment given the time and effort AMD expended aiming to satisfy the Forum's guidelines. The months of work now feel wasted with this outright rejection. As reasoning, the HDMI Forum cited legal and compliance rules around not enabling open-source HDMI 2.1 code.

Legal issues and compliance are major problems for open-source HDMI developers, as HDMI Forum has decided to make the HDMI specification private in 2021. This directly translates into the newest open-source driver developments, where the latest features will probably remain behind a closed-source binary. Consequently, AMD is advising Linux gamers to use DisplayPort if they want access to features like 4K 120 Hz gaming. Meanwhile, Windows AMD users still get full HDMI 2.1 capabilities. This dichotomy spotlights the ongoing obstacles around open-source driver development. The rejection also strains the AMD - HDMI Forum relationship. AMD hoped spearheading open-source HDMI 2.1 drivers would position them as leaders in the open-source community. Instead, their flexibility plea was denied by the rigid HDMI Forum requirements. Ultimately, whether Linux-based AMD owners can ever utilize next-gen HDMI 2.1 displays fully remains to be determined. For now, AMD continues pushing open-source as the best approach, while the HDMI Forum refuses to budge on compliance demands. Both sides seem firmly entrenched, leaving consumers caught in the middle.

Slimbook Spain has presented its "KDE Slimbook V" model to the public—the company has collaborated with KDE, an international free software community. The latter's Plasma 6 open-source desktop environment is due to launch next week (according to Phoronix), so it is encouraging to see partner hardware appear beforehand. The Spanish tech company specializes in Linux-loaded laptops and notebooks—their "KDE V" collaborative variant seems to be an offshoot of an already released Slimbook Excalibur model, bearing a full "refined" aluminium chassis. The KDE Slimbook V is hyped as offering: "outstanding Performance—slender laptop that packs a punch. At the heart of the svelte KDE Slimbook beats the AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS processor, one of the most powerful CPUs for portable computers in the range. With its 8 cores and 16 threads, it can run your whole office from home and on the go, render 3D animations, compile your code and serve up the entertainment for your downtime." The KDE Slimbook V's full specification page can be found here.

A Slimbook Manjaro gaming-oriented laptop was revealed last week—again, this seems to be another rejigged model. An earlier "Hero" version shares the same spec sheet; notable parts include an Intel Core i7-13620H CPU and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile GPU. The Slimbook and Manjaro partnership provides an almost Valve Steam Deck-esque user experience, albeit in non-handheld form—with support for Steam, Heroic Games Launcher, ProtonUp-QT, OBS, and Lutris platforms. Returning to the Slimbook V—its upcoming deployment of KDE's Plasma 6 desktop simply replaces the Excalibur model's standard installation of Linux or Windows OS options (dual boot is also available). Slimbook has set a starting price of €999 for a basic configuration—customers can select various upgrade options (RAM, storage, USB-C adaptors, power bricks etc.).

Phoronix has spotted intriguing new Linux kernel patches for Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" processors—the Monday morning notes reveal in-house software engineers are implementing default power profile adjustments. Meteor Lake CPUs have been operating on a default "balanced_performance" mode since their December 2023 launch—Linux adjustments will affect the processor's Energy Performance Preference (EPP) under Linux (similar to Windows Power Plans). Michael Larabel (Phoronix head honcho) laid out some history: "We've seen EPP overrides/tuning in the past within the Intel P-State driver for prior generations of Intel processors and this is much the same here. The ACPI EPP value is typically a range from 0 to 255 for indicating the processor/system power to performance preference."

He continued onto present day circumstances: "To date though the Intel P-State EPP override/tuning has been focused on the default "balanced_performance" mode while the first patch (from Monday) allows for model-specific EPP overrides for all pre-defined EPP strings. The second patch then goes ahead and updates the EPP values for Meteor Lake so that the balanced_performance default is now treated as 115 rather than 128 and the "performance" EPP is set to 16 rather than 0." Larabel is hopeful that a public release will coincide with the "upcoming Linux v6.9 cycle." Intel software engineers reckon that their tweaks/overrides have produced higher performance results—for "small form factor devices"—while reducing CPU temperatures and thermal throttling. Meteor Lake is considered to be quite energy inefficient when compared to the closest mobile processor architectures from AMD and Apple. Team Blue's next-gen Arrow Lake family is expected to launch later this year, but the current crop of CPUs require a bit of TLC and optimization in the meantime.

Slimbook, a Spanish tech company, is a self-described pioneer in the GNU/Linux hardware ecosystem—specializing in laptops and notebooks. Their latest offering is a gaming-oriented model that packs a typical modern day specification sheet: Intel Core i7-13620H CPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 integrated graphics, and a 15.6 inch, 2560 x 1440 pixel 165 Hz display. A previously released Hero model sports the same specs, although it is sold with "Windows, Linux, or both (Dual Boot)" options. Beyond the usual gaming hardware credentials, a unique selling point is signified by its name: Slimbook Hero Manjaro—this Linux distribution was previously sighted on Orange Pi Neo handheld demo units.

Linux's popularity in gaming circles has grown since the launch of Valve's Steam Deck handheld—its Proton software layer grants access to roughly 4400 compatible Windows titles (at the time of writing). Valve's Deck Verified operation will continue on its quest to add even more titles in the near future. By all indications, the Manjaro Linux team and its hardware partners have been taking notes—while most gaming handhelds manufacturers have sided with Microsoft's Windows 11 OS, the Orange Pi Neo team has opted to go open source. Slimbook's selection of a community-backed Manjaro OS is certainly quite distinctive in the world of GNU/Linux gaming laptops/notebooks—customers are treated to a wide selection of ecosystems: Steam, Heroic Games Launcher, ProtonUp-QT, OBS, and Lutris.

IBM has announced IBM LinuxONE 4 Express, extending the latest performance, security and AI capabilities of LinuxONE to small and medium sized businesses and within new data center environments. The pre-configured rack mount system is designed to offer cost savings and to remove client guess work when spinning up workloads quickly and getting started with the platform to address new and traditional use cases such as digital assets, medical imaging with AI, and workload consolidation.

Building an integrated hybrid cloud strategy for today and years to come
As businesses move their products and services online quickly, oftentimes, they are left with a hybrid cloud environment created by default, with siloed stacks that are not conducive to alignment across businesses or the introduction of AI. In a recent IBM IBV survey, 84% of executives asked acknowledged their enterprise struggles in eliminating silo-to-silo handoffs. And 78% of responding executives said that an inadequate operating model impedes successful adoption of their multicloud platform. With the pressure to accelerate and scale the impact of data and AI across the enterprise - and improve business outcomes - another approach that organizations can take is to more carefully identify which workloads should be on-premises vs in the cloud.

Phoronix head honcho, Michael Larabel, has noticed another set of interesting updates for AMD Graphics on Linux—albeit in preparation for next generation solutions: "engineers on Monday (February 5) posted a few new patch series for enabling some updated IP (intellectual property) blocks within their open-source AMDGPU Linux kernel graphics driver. This new IP is presumably part of the ongoing hardware enablement work for their next-gen RDNA 4 graphics." Team Red GitHub patches for "GFX12" targets appeared online last November, again highlighted by Larabel's investigative work—AMD engineers appear to be quite determined with their open-source software endeavors, as seen in LLVM-Project notes regarding GFX1200's enablement.

The new "IP block" updates included patches for the enabling ATHUB 4.1, LSDMA 7.0, IH 7.0, and HDP 7.0—presumably for next generation Radeon graphics solutions. Larabel provided a quick breakdown of these components: "ATHUB 4.1 is needed for clock-gating / power management features, LSDMA 7.0 is the latest IP for Light SDMA for general purpose System DMA (SDMA) on the GPU, IH 7.0 for the Interrupt Handler on the GPU, and HDP 7.0 for the Host Data Path support for CPU accessing the GPU device memory via the PCI BAR. As far as code changes, the big chunks of the work are from the auto-generated header files." He believes that AMD's engineers have largely moved on from current generation tasks: "The big version bumps for these IP blocks all the more are likely indicative of these bits being for next-gen RDNA 4 as opposed to further iterating on RDNA3 or similar." The patches could be merged into the upcoming Linux 6.9 release, possibly coinciding with a Radeon RX 8000 series rollout.

Intel has begun rolling out software binaries compiled with support for upcoming Advanced Performance Extensions (APX) and Advanced Vector Extensions 10 (AVX10) instruction set extensions in their Clear Linux distribution, ahead of any processors officially supporting these capabilities launching. Clear Linux is focusing first on optimized APX and AVX10 versions of foundational software libraries like glibc and Python. This builds on Clear Linux's existing support for optimized x86-64-v2, v3, and v4 code paths, leveraging the latest microarchitectural features of each Intel CPU generation. The rationale is to prepare Clear Linux to fully leverage the performance potential of next-generation Intel Xeon server processors, code-named Granite Rapids, expected to launch later this year.

Granite Rapids will introduce AVX10.1/512 instructions as well as the new APX capabilities, which are currently not well documented implementation wise. By rolling out APX/AVX10 support in software now, Clear Linux aims to have an optimized ecosystem ready when the new processors officially ship. Initially, APX and AVX10 support is being added using the existing GCC compiler. Still, Clear Linux notes they will transition to using the upcoming GCC 14 release with more mature support for these instruction sets. The goal is to eventually have many Clear Linux packages compiled with APX/AVX10 code paths to maximize performance on future Intel CPUs. This continues Clear Linux's strategy of leveraging Intel's latest hardware capabilities in software.

The Manjaro Linux team exhibited Orange Pi Neo gaming handhelds at the annual FOSDEM event this past weekend. Attendees were welcomed to play around with early examples at the KDE booth in Brussels, Belgium—Orange Pi expressed its ambition (last year) to expand its single-board operation into the flourishing handheld gaming PC market. According to past reports, the Neo was teased throughout 2023—so it was not surprising to witness working prototypes in the hands of open-source enthusiasts in recent days. Orange Pi has selected AMD's Ryzen 7 7840U "Phoenix" APU—a laptop/notebook processor that is emerging as the de facto choice for many handheld gaming systems. The most globally available mainstream Windows 11 options—ASUS ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go—sport Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoCs, that are eerily similar in design to the popular Ryzen 7 7840U chip.

Orange Pi and Manjaro are targeting a late 2024 launch (according to Android Pimp)—this could place the Neo alongside potential next-generation devices with upgraded internals. Neo's unique selling point seems to be a slimmer (than normal) profile—the "ultra slim and small" handheld's dimensions are 259 mm x107 mm x 19.9 mm, coupled with a 7-inch FHD+ LCD screen (1920 x 1200, WUXGA, 16:10, 500 nits peak Brightness, 120 Hz Refresh Rate). A proper D-pad design and "YXBA" button layout indicate that a retro gaming-oriented playerbase is being targeted, although twin hall-effect sticks and linear triggers bring things firmly into the 2020s tech-wise.

An Open Image Denoise 2.2 release candidate was released earlier today—as discovered by Phoronix's founder and principal writer; Michael Larabel. Intel's dedicated website has not been updated with any new documentation or changelogs (at the time of writing), but a GitHub release page shows all of the crucial information. Team Blue's open-source oneAPI has been kept up-to-date with the latest technologies—not only limited to Intel's stable of Xe-LP, Xe-HPG and Xe-HPC components—the Phonorix article highlights updated support on competing platforms. The v2.2 preview adds support for Meteor Lake's integrated Arc graphics solution, and additional "denoising quality enhancements and other improvements."

Non-Intel platform improvements include updates for Apple's M-series chipsets, AArch64 processors, and NVIDIA CUDA. OIDn 2.2-rc: "adds Metal device support for Apple Silicon GPUs on recent versions of macOS. OIDn has already been supporting ARM64/AArch64 for Apple Silicon CPUs while now Open Image Denoise has extended that AArch64 support to work on Windows and Linux too. There is better performance in general for Open Image Denoise on CPUs with this forthcoming release." The changelog also highlights a general improvement performance across processors, and a fix that resolves a crash incident: "when releasing a buffer after releasing the device."

The Finals—a free-to-play online first-person shooter—has pulled in a large population of gamers across Windows PCs and current-gen gaming consoles since its surprise launch last month, but players on Linux Desktop + Intel Arc hardware were missing out on this experience...until very recently. Phoronix reports that Embark Studio's Unreal Engine 5-powered title has started to work in a Linux environment "thanks to Valve's Steam Play (Proton + VKD3D-Proton). With the latest Mesa driver activity, Intel Arc Graphics on Linux with their open-source driver can now handle this popular game." GamingOnLinux owner, Liam Dawe, created a post about this development, although he noticed a multitude of stability problems and glitches in-game, but was largely up and running with an AMD Radeon 6800 XT GPU on Mesa 23.3.3.

Phoronix's Michael Larabel noted some (Intel Arc-specific) feedback on GitLab: "when launching The Finals on Linux with Intel Arc Graphics using the default DirectX 12 renderer, it was reported that the game is stuck at a black screen for Intel Arc Graphics and then simply closes... Well, it's an easy fix and one that has come up before." He has witnessed similar problems with other games—notably Diablo IV and Cyberpunk 2077: "due to The Finals using Intel's XeSS upscaling tech but that not behaving well on Linux. The Windows game sees Intel Graphics being utilized and by default tries to leverage XeSS...Intel Arc Graphics on Linux can run The Finals when concealing the fact that it's Intel Graphics inside."

Back at the Schenker booth, we also spied the Tuxedo Computers Sirius 16. Schenker is the OEM/SI for this brand, which specializes in notebooks, mobile workstations, mini-PCs, commercial desktops, and large workstations; with the singular design goal of making them 100% compatible with and optimized for popular PC Linux distributions, hence the name. These Linux-friendly PCs are designed and assembled in Germany. The Tuxedo Sirius 16, as its name suggests, features a 16-inch 16:9 1440p display; and an illuminated keyboard. All its ports, connectors, audio, and networking interfaces have been tested for 100% compatibility and performance on Linux.

Under the hood is an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS "Phoenix" processor, with its 8-core/16-thread "Zen 4" CPU, and a cTDP set by Tuxedo at 54 W. This is paired with dual-channel DDR5 SO-DIMM slots, with options going all the way up to 96 GB. Graphics is care of a discrete AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT with 8 GB of memory, and 130 W configured power limit. The notebook features an all-metal chassis, and since the cooling solution isn't as elaborate on the XMG Neo 17 with its bulky 150 W CPU and 175 W GPU; Schenker used the space to cram in an 80 Wh battery (whereas the XMG Neo 17 has a 99 Wh pack). The 40 Gbps USB4 port from the "Phoenix" SoC is wired out. Neato.

Chinese x86 CPU developer Zhaoxin is working on adding support in the Linux kernel for scheduling optimization on its processors featuring "preferred cores." Similar to asymmetric core designs from Intel and AMD, Zhaoxin's chips may have specific higher-performance cores the OS scheduler should target for critical workloads. To enable this, Zhaoxin has proposed Linux patches leveraging existing ACPI functionality to indicate per-core differences in max frequency or capabilities. The CPUfreq driver is updated to reflect this, allowing the scheduler to favor the designated high-performance cores when assigning threads and processes. This ensures tasks can dynamically take advantage of the faster cores to maximize performance. The approach resembles tuned scheduling, aware of core topology and heterogeneity already found in Intel and AMD processors.

Zhaoxin's patches don't specify which existing or upcoming CPUs will expose preferred core hints. The company likely wants the functionality in place for future server-class products where asymmetric designs make sense for efficiency. The new code contribution reflects Zhaoxin's broader upstreaming effort around Linux kernel support for its Yongfeng server CPU family. Robust open-source foundations are crucial for gaining developer mindshare and data center adoption. Adding sophisticated features like preferred core scheduling indicates that Zhaoxin's chips are maturing from essential x86 compatibility to more refined performance optimization. While still trailing Intel and AMD in cores and clocks, closing the software ecosystem and efficiency gap remains key to competitiveness. Ongoing Linux enablement work is laying the groundwork for more capable Zhaoxin silicon.

AMD released its latest PMC (power management controller) driver patches for the Linux kernel, which reference a yet unreleased "Family 1Ah" processors. Phoronix believes this is the first reference to AMD's next generation "Zen 5" microarchitecture in the PMC driver. We've already seen AMD EPYC "Turin" server processors based on "Zen 5" in the flesh, and it's likely that AMD is handing these out to some of its biggest data-center customers for testing and evaluation, before giving them some final touches and green-lighting mass-production in 2024. The patches themselves are barely two new lines of code, and talk about a new sleep state called "s2idle." This is a software-defined system sleep state. The EPYC "Turin" processor comes in two packages, one with up to 128 "Zen 5" cores, and another with up to 192 "Zen 5c" cores for cloud applications.

Chinese company Sipeed has introduced the Lichee Pocket 4A, one of the first handheld gaming devices based on the RISC-V open-source instruction set architecture (ISA). Sipeed positions the device as a retro gaming platform capable of running simple titles via software rendering or GPU acceleration. At its core is Alibaba's T-Head TH1520 processor featuring four 2.50 GHz Xuantie C910 RISC-V general-purpose CPU cores and an unnamed Imagination GPU. The chip was originally aimed at laptop designs. Memory options include 8 GB or 16 GB LPDDR4X RAM and 32 GB or 128 GB of storage. The Lichee Pocket 4A has a 7-inch 1280x800 LCD touchscreen, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connectivity, and an array of wired ports like USB and Ethernet. It weighs under 500 grams. The device can run Android or Linux distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, and others.

As an early RISC-V gaming entrant, performance expectations should be modest—the focus is retro gaming and small indie titles, not modern AAA games. Specific gaming capabilities remain to be fully tested. However, the release helps showcase RISC-V's potential for consumer electronics and competitive positioning against proprietary ISAs like ARM. Pricing is still undefined, but another Sipeed handheld console retails for around $250 currently. Reception from enthusiasts and developers will demonstrate whether there's a viable market for RISC-V gaming devices. Success could encourage additional hardware experimentation efforts across emerging open architectures. With a 6000 mAh battery, battery life should be decent. Other specifications can be seen in the table below, and the pre-order link is here.

Intel's software team has added support in its open-source Linux drivers for an unannounced Habana "Gaudi2C" AI accelerator variant. Little is documented about the mystery Gaudi2C, which shares a core identity with Intel's flagship Gaudi2 data center training and inference chip, otherwise broadly available. The new revision is distinguished only by a PCI ID of "3" in the latest patch set for Linux 6.8. Speculations circulate that Gaudi2C may be a version tailored to meet China-specific demands, similar to Intel's Gaudi2 HL-225B SKU launched in July with reduced interconnect links. With US export bans restricting sales of advanced hardware to China, including Intel's leading Gaudi2 products, creating reduced-capability spinoffs that meet export regulations lets Intel maintain crucial Chinese revenue.

Meanwhile, Intel's upstream Linux contributions remain focused on hardening Gaudi/Gaudi2 support, now considered "very stable" by lead driver developer Oded Gabbay. Minor new additions reflect maturity, not instability. The open-sourced foundations contrast NVIDIA's proprietary driver model, a key Intel competitive argument for service developers using Habana Labs hardware. With the SynapseAI software suite reaching stability, some enterprises could consider Gaudi accelerators as an alternative to NVIDIA. And with Gaudi3 arriving next year, the ecosystem will get a better competitive advantage with increased performance targets.

Binarly's research team has discovered a collection of security vulnerabilities known as "LogoFAIL", which affects image parsing components within the UEFI firmware of a wide array of devices. These vulnerabilities are especially concerning because they are embedded within the reference code provided by Independent BIOS Vendors (IBVs), affecting not just a single vendor but a broad spectrum of devices that utilize this code. LogoFAIL is particularly dangerous because it allows attackers to bypass crucial security measures such as Secure Boot and Intel Boot Guard by executing a payload during the device's boot process. This is achieved by storing malicious images on the EFI System Partition or within unsigned sections of firmware updates. This method can compromise system security deeply without altering the runtime integrity of the bootloader or firmware, unlike other threats such as BlackLotus or BootHole.

The potential reach of LogoFAIL vulnerability is rather wide, with millions of consumer and enterprise-grade devices from various vendors, including ones like Intel, Acer, and Lenovo, being vulnerable. The exact list of affected devices is still undetermined, but the prevalence of the IBVs' code across numerous devices suggests that the impact could be widespread, with both Windows and Linux users being affected. Only PCs that don't allow any logotype displayed in the UEFI during the boot process are safe. Apple's Macs are secure as they don't allow any add-on images during boot, and some OEM prebuilt PCs, like the ones from Dell, don't allow images in the UEFI. Some makers like Lenovo, AMI, and Insyde have already published notes about cautiously uploading custom images to the UEFI and providing BIOS updates. Consumers and enterprises must check with their OEMs and IBVs for BIOS microcode updates to patch against this vulnerability.Below, you can see the proof of concept in a YouTube video.