An in-kernel machine-learning library

For those wanting more machine learning in the kernel, Viacheslav Dubeyko
has posted a
new in-kernel library
for that purpose.

What is the goal of using ML models in Linux kernel? The main goal
is to employ ML models for elaboration of a logic of particular
Linux kernel subsystem based on processing data or/and an efficient
subsystem configuration based on internal state of subsystem. As a
result, it needs: (1) collect data for training, (2) execute ML
model training phase, (3) test trained ML model, (4) use ML model
for executing the inference phase. The ML model inference can be
used for recommendation of Linux kernel subsystem configuration
or/and for injecting a synthesized subsystem logic into kernel
space (for example, eBPF logic).

It is rigorously undocumented
and there are no real users, so it’s not entirely clear what the purpose
is, but there are undoubtedly interesting things that could be done with
it.

Maca 2 enables high-power wireless connectivity for UAV and robotic systems

8devices has previewed the Maca 2, a compact, high-power data radio for long-range wireless communication in drone, robotics, and industrial systems. Designed and manufactured in Europe, the platform is NDAA and TAA compliant and integrates multiple interfaces for range-focused deployments. The system is built on Qualcomm’s QCS405 system-on-chip, featuring a 650 MHz 24Kc MIPS processor […]

Ardour 9.0 released

The Ardour digital-audio-workstation (DAW)
project has announced the
release of version 9.0
.

This is a major release for the project, seeing several substantive new features that users have asked for over a long period of time. Region FX, clip recording, a touch-sensitive GUI, pianoroll windows, clip editing and more, not to mention dozens of bug fixes, new MIDI binding maps, improved GUI performance on macOS (for most) …

We expect to get feedback on some of the major new features in this release, and plan to take that into account as we improve and refine them and the rest of Ardour going forward. We have no doubt that there will be both delight and disappointment with certain things – rather than assume that we don’t know what we’re doing, please leave us feedback on the forums so that Ardour gets better over time. Those of you new to our clip launching implementation might care to read up on the differences with Ableton Live.

In the coming weeks, we’ll begin to sketch out what we have planned next for Ardour, in addition to responding to the feedback we get on this 9.0 release.

[$] Kernel control-flow-integrity support comes to GCC

Control-flow integrity (CFI) is a set of techniques that make it more difficult for
attackers to hijack indirect jumps to exploit a system. The Linux kernel has
supported forward-edge CFI (which protects indirect function calls)
since 2020, with the most recent implementation
of the feature introduced in 2022. That
version avoids the overhead introduced by the earlier approach by using a
compiler flag (-fsanitize=kcfi) that is present in Clang but not in
GCC. Now, Kees Cook has

a patch set
adding that support to GCC that looks likely to land in GCC
17.

Linux from Scratch to drop System V versions

The Linux From
Scratch
(LFS) project provides step-by-step instructions on
building a customized Linux system entirely from source. Historically,
the project has provided separate System V and systemd editions,
which gave users a choice of init systems. Bruce Dubbs has announced
the project will no longer produce the System V version:

There are two reasons for this decision. The first reason is
workload. No one working on LFS is paid. We rely completely on
volunteers. In LFS there are 88 packages. In BLFS there are over
1000. The volume of changes from upstream is overwhelming the
editors. In this release cycle that started on the 1st of September
until now, there have been 70 commits to LFS and 1155 commits to BLFS
(and counting). When making package updates, many packages need to be
checked for both System V and systemd. When preparing for release, all
packages need to be checked for each init system.

The second reason for dropping System V is that packages like GNOME
and soon KDE’s Plasma are building in requirements that require
capabilities in systemd that are not in System V. This could
potentially be worked around with another init system like OpenRC, but
beyond the transition process it still does not address the ongoing
workload problem.

[…] As a personal note, I do not like this decision. To me LFS is
about learning how a system works. Understanding the boot process is a
big part of that. systemd is about 1678 “C” files plus many data
files. System V is “22” C files plus about 50 short bash scripts and
data files. Yes, systemd provides a lot of capabilities, but we will
be losing some things I consider important.

The next version, 13.0, is expected in March and will only focus on
systemd.

Pushing The Intel Panther Lake CPU Performance Further On Linux

Earlier this week I published the first Linux benchmarks of Intel’s much anticipated Panther Lake with the Core Ultra X7 358H 16-core 18A processor. The Panther Lake SoC showed very nice generational gains especially with much better performance-per-Watt and the Intel Arc B390 graphics are also fascinatingly fast while continuing to be backed by open-source drivers. In today’s article are more Panther Lake Linux benchmarks on the CPU side in looking at the performance potential when pushing the Core Ultra X7 358H with a higher power budget.

“DHEI” Proposed For Linux To Help Cloud-Native Orchestrators & High Frequency Traders

Sent out today as a request for comments is a new patch series for Dynamic Housekeeping and Enhanced Isolation (DHEI). DHEI aims to provide run-time adjustments to kernel behavior around CPU isolation for helping with latency-sensitive tasks. The expressed goal is for helping cloud-native orchestrators and high frequency trading platforms dynamically re-partition CPU resources without downtime…