Linux kernel news

• Sensor Fusion Hub Driver For AMD Laptops With Gyroscopes Is Coming To Linux 5.11
  
  
  It's been a long and hard road to acceptance for AMD's Sensor Fusion Hub Linux driver. The first revision was submitted to the Linux kernel Mailing List in January 2020. It took eight revisions and a lot of effort before Jiří Kosina finally accepted it into the hid.git#for-5.11 tree, almost guaranteeing that it will become a part of Linux 5.11.
  
• Linux 5.9.1 And Older Stable Kernel Updates Fixing "Bleeding Tooth" Bluetooth Vulnerability Are Available
  
  
  BleedingTooth is a remote code execution vulnerability affecting all Linux kernels going back to Linux 4.8. It allows an attacker within Bluetooth range to execute code on remote systems if Bluetooth is turned on the remote system and it's set to be discoverable thanks to a combination of security issues in the BlueZ library and heap-based type confusion on the Linux kernels L2CAP code.
  
• Linux 5.10 Will Have A Fully Lock-Less Ring Buffer
  
  
  Linus Torvalds has merged a set of printk() patches by John Ogness that make the kernel ring buffer (what you see if you type dmesg) fully lock-less. This is a big improvement that allows messages to be stored and read without the need for temporary per-CPU buffers with no risk of deadlocks.
  
• XFS Patches For Linux 5.10 Delays The Year 2038 Problem To 2486
  
  
  XFS patches for Linux 5.10 submitted by XFS file system maintainer Darrick J. Wong will delay the year 2038 problem for XFS by an additional 448 years. That should be enough to come up with a real long-term solution. The time-stamp patches were submitted as a part of a larger patch-set with a "large pile of new stuff".
  
• Linux 5.9 Is Released With New Drivers, Improved AMD GPU Support, And Support The x86-64 FSGSBASE CPU Instructions
  
  
  It was a bumpy release-cycle for Linux 5.9 with one release candidate refusing to show anything graphical on Intel GPUs. The final 5.9 release doesn't have that problem. It has have quite a lot of new features such as support for upcoming AMD graphics cards, support for the FSGSBASE x86-64 instructions, a Corsair RGB hub and a lot more.
  
• AMD Hopes To Get Sensor Fusion Hub Driver For AMD Laptop Gyroscopes And Other Sensors Into Linux 5.10
  
  
  AMD's Sandeep Singh has submitted yet another revision of AMD's Linux HID driver for the Sensor Fusion Hub hardware in all AMD laptops based on Ryzen processors. That makes it eight in total. This could be the lucky revision that makes it into the Linux kernel when the Linux 5.10 merge window opens up on Monday.
  
• Linux 5.9-rc8 Is Out With PCIe IDs for AMDs Upcoming Sienna Cichlid GPUs
  
  
  We have examined the latest Linux 5.9 release candidate and found that it is actually possible to use it to boot and start X or Wayland on machines with Intel processors using Intel integrated graphics with this latest kernel release-candidate. That is an improvement since the total train-wreck disaster released as Linux 5.9-rc7.
  
• Linux 5.9-rc7 Is A Total Disaster On Machines With Intel Graphics
  
  
  The latest Linux 5.9 release candidate won't even let you start the X display server on machines with integrated Intel graphics. Running Linux on machines with integrated Intel graphics has been problematic since Linux 5.0. All those problems remained an issue with Linux 5.9-rc6. Linux 5.9-rc7 takes it one step further, it won't even let you get into a graphical environment without crashing the i915 kernel display driver for Intel GPU chips. It is a complete and utter disaster for people using integrated Intel graphics.
  
• Linux 5.9 Will Be Delayed One Week
  
  
  The Linux 5.9 release cycle has not gone as smoothly as earlier release cycles. There has been some unfortunate virtual memory management issues and slab corruption issues during the 5.9 release cycle which are, hopefully, fixed in 5.9 rc7. Linus Torvalds wants to delay the final 5.9 release just to be sure those are gone. He neglected to mention that 5.9 rc7 introduced a regression that prevents certain Intel integrated graphics chips from being used as more than coasters.
  
• AV1 Hardware Video Decode Support For AMD RX 6000 Series GPUs Coming In Linux 5.10
  
  
  AMD has historically been extremely slow compared to Nvidia and Intel when it comes to providing hardware video encoding and decoding capabilities for open video standards like VP8 and VP9. New patches by AMD Open Source Laboratory developer Alex Deucher show that AMD won't be dragging their feet for years before they add AV1 video decoding support to their hardware, it is already there in the upcoming RX 6000 series GPUs. VP9 and AV1 video encoding support is still severely lacking.
  
• Improved Lenovo Laptop Hotkey Support Coming To Linux 5.10
  
  
  The Chinese Lenovo Group promised to Linux certify their laptops and make laptops with Linux available in a big announcement back in July. They have been offering one ThinkPad X1 model with Fedora pre-installed since mid-August. Linux 5.10 will have support for four additional hotkeys on that one laptops Lenovo sells with Fedora pre-installed thanks to RedHat developer Hans de Goede.
  
• Linux 5.9 Brings Hardware Accelerated Video Playback To 10+ Year Old AMD Graphics Cards Using The "amdgpu" Linux Kernel Driver
  
  
  AMD kicked off their HD 7000 series graphics cards with the launch of the Radeon HD 7970 code-named "Tahiti" in December 2011. Linux users are finally able to get working Hardware Video Decoding and Vulkan support on these and other older AMD graphics cards using the Linux kernel's "amdgpu" driver.
  
• Linux 5.9 rc4 Released
  
  
  Linus Torvalds thinks the fourth Linux 5.9 release candidate was "bigger" than usual. He may be referring to a single commit titled "Pull tasklet API conversions" with 266761 lines removed and 713638 lines added to 12723 different files. The rest of the changes since rc3 are mostly smaller trivial fixes.
  
• Linux 5.9 rc1 Is Released With Support for Upcoming AMD GPUs and Corsair RGB Hubs
  
  
  The merge window for Linux 5.9 is slammed shut with the first release candidate becoming available yesterday. The next Linux kernel will support using zstd compression for the kernel and initramfs images, 64-bit inodes on tmpfs file systems stored in memory and a whole range of new hardware. Support for two upcoming AMD graphics card families code-named "Sienna Cichlid" and "Navy Flounder" as well as support for the Corsair iCUE Commander Pro "smart" fan and RGB controller stand out as particularly interesting.
  
• Linux 5.8 Is Released And It The Largest Release Of All Time
  
  
  Linux 5.8 brings a lot of changes on the networking side with major re-work of the Mellanox network drivers, Atheros wireless drivers and Bluetooth drivers. There's also big changes to the AMD graphics drivers and several other areas. This kernel release is overall the biggest ever in terms of changes. Some of those changes warrant caution, you may want to wait for a few minor point releases before you upgrade to Linux 5.8.
  
• Linus Torvalds Has Merged Inclusive-Terminology Rules Into The Linux Kernel Git Tree
  
  
  "The discussion has tapered off as well as the incoming ack, review, and sign-off tags. I did not see a reason to wait for the next merge window". Word like master, slave, blacklist and whitelist is now banned from the Linux kernel. Accepted new-speak replacement word include primary, main, secondary, replica, subordinate, initiator, requester, target, responder, controller,host, device, worker, proxy, leader, follower, director and performer. The new terms will likely confuse non-technical people, non-native English speakers and others who have been using the now-banned technical terms for decades.
  
• Intel Is Pushing For 1984-Style Revision Of Words Allowed In Linux Kernel Development And Documentation
  
  
  Intel Corporation has submitted a long documentation proposal for "inclusive-terminology" to the Linux Kernel Mailing List which forbids commonly used terminology like master/slave and blacklist/whitelist. The Intel-proposed new-speak replacements such red/green seem more confusing than the long-used long-established commonly known terms they would replace. A majority of kernel developers seem to be on-board with Intel's new-speak proposals.
  
• Linux 5.8 Brings Per-Core Energy Sensor Support For AMD CPUs
  
  
  The new amd_energy can in theory tell you how much energy each core on AMD family 17h and above CPUs consume as well as the total amount of energy consumed by the CPU package. The readings given in Joules and the reported total package figures appear to be fairly accurate. If the per-core energy readings are correct or not is an entirely different question.
  
• Linux 5.6.2 Is Released With Intel Wifi Fix
  
  
  There were some small bug fixes in Linux 5.6.1 and mostly small bug fixes in Linux 5.6.2 too except for one rather important fix for those who have wireless Intel WIFI chips. Linux 5.6 broke wifi support for everyone using the iwlwifi driver for wireless Intel cards. 5.6.2 has a small fix which restores wifi functionality for all the affected users.
  
• Linux 5.6 Is Released
  
  
  The latest kernel displays Vcore, Vsoc, Icore and Isoc power values on AMD chips using the k10temp hardware monitoring driver, there's multipath TCP (MPTCP) support, WireGuard network tunnel support for VPN connections, support for passing a configuration file with kernel options upon boot and much more. Intel WIFI support is broken in this kernel so you should avoid it if you are using a laptop or a notebook with a Intel WIFI chip.
  
• New Modern exFAT Driver From Samsung Is Coming In Linux 5.7
  
  
  The Linux kernel has had support for the Microsoft FAT file system since forever but the more advanced exFAT variant was not supported by the kernel until Linux 5.4. That exFAT support is based on a many years old Samsung driver and it is still in staging. A much more modern and complete version of the Samsung exFAT driver is scheduled to land in Linux 5.7 and it will skip the kernel's staging area and go directly to mainline.
  
• Linux 5.5 "Kleptomaniac Octopus" Is Released
  
  
  Linux 5.5 has a reworked fair scheduler, better live kernel patching, parallel microcode updates, NVMe temperature monitoring using hwmon, support for overclocking and 8K resolutions on AMD Navi graphics cards, support for LEDs on Logitech keyboards and several other improvements.
  
• Linux 5.6 Will Support Per-Die Temperature Readings On AMD Zen2 Processors
  
  
  The latest generation AMD processors have per-die temperature sensors. A series of patches by Guenter Roeck with support for Core Complex Die (CCD) temperatures on Ryzen 3000 (Zen2) CPUs and Vcore and SOC voltage and current sensors on all Ryzen CPUs have been merged to the linux-next tree.
  
• Linux 5.5rc7 Is Released
  
  
  Linux 5.5 will be released next week barring any huge and important last minute patches. Now much was changed in rc7 since the last release candidate with the majority of patches arriving the last two days. There is nothing ground-breaking in the changelog, only minor fixes in the various sub-systems.
  
• Red Hat Recommends Disabling Hardware Acceleration on Intel Integrated Graphics Due To Hardware Flaw
  
  
  Red Hat has issued guidance for the latest Intel CPU hardware bug which, unlike Meltdown and other widely publicized hardware flaws in Intel CPU products, affects the GPU part of Intel chips (if they have one). The proposed "solution" is a bit dramatic: just disable hardware acceleration and you'll be fine - unless you would like to watch videos or play games or do anything else in a graphical environment for that matter.
  
• Latest Linux Kernels Fix Security Flaw In The Intel Processors With iGPUs
  
  
  Linux 5.4.12 as well as updates to the stable branch kernels released on Tuesday have a security patch for Intel processors with Gen9 graphics which addresses a vulnerability that could be used for "information disclosure via local access". Older Intel chips are also affected. The details for CVE-2019-14615 have not been made public.
  
• Linux 5.5rc6 Is Released, 5.5 Final Is Coming In Two To Three Weeks
  
  
  Linus Torvalds that the holiday season has meant limited activity from both the testing and development side. A longer than usual release-cycle for kernel 5.5 is therefore more likely than not. The majority of changes since the last release-candidate are on the network side with some updates to USB, MID and sound drivers. The problems with the Intel i915 iGPU driver which have plagued the kernel for several major releases remain.
  
• Linux Kernel 5.5 Will Not Fix The Frequent Intel GPU Hangs In Recent Kernels
  
  
  Linux users running machines with Intel integrated graphics have been struggling with frequent system hangs and other problems caused by a buggy i915 kernel module for Intel iGPUs for quite some time. 5.3 series kernels went from being completely useless to problematic as of 5.3.14 while 5.4 series kernels remain utterly broken. Several fixes attempting solve some of the more common problems with Intel graphics chips have been merged into the Linux Kernel mainline git tree the last few days. Problems with frequent hangs remain and it looks like Linux Kernel 5.5 will be as problematic as previous kernels for those using Intel integrated graphics.
  
• Trusted Memory Zone Support Coming To AMD APUs in Linux Kernel 5.6
  
  
  Support for Trusted Memory Zones on AMD APUs has been merged into the linux-next tree which makes it highly likely that Linux 5.6 will have code which allows the GPU driver to encrypt shared system memory used by the graphics driver. Regular programs running on the CPU will not be able to read or write the TMZ memory areas.
  
• Google Stadia Dev Brings Spinlocks Back From The Dead, Blames The Linux Kernels Scheduler For Performance Problems
  
  
  If you use use spinlocks where mutexes are needed, you suffer all the performance problem you deserve. The Linux kernel provides futexes (fast user-space mutexes) and you should be using those to do locking in games and other applications that require thread synchronization. Don't blame the Linux kernel if you are doing it wrong and your programs performance suffers as a result.