When drivers get dropped from the Linux kernel it’s generally due to hardware being no one cares about anymore that hasn’t been produced in many years and the code often falls into disrepair to the point that the only logical way forward is dropping the driver. That happened last year to the “FDOMAIN” driver but as does happen every so often (albeit rare) thanks to the code being still obtainable through Git and the nature of open-source, interested parties can step up and revive the code…

Source: Phoronix – Dropped Linux Kernel Drivers Occasionally See Revival – FDOMAIN Gets Second Chance

Canonical has shifted the default Java of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS from OpenJDK 10 to OpenJDK 11. Plus here are some fresh OpenJDK 8/11/12 benchmarks on this Ubuntu Long Term Support release…

Source: Phoronix – OpenJDK 11 Now The Default Java For Ubuntu 18.04 LTS – Plus Some New OpenJDK Benchmarks

AMD this morning released AMDVLK 2019.Q2.2 as the newest tagged update to their open-source Radeon Vulkan Linux graphics driver…

Source: Phoronix – AMDVLK 2019.Q2.2 Brings More Performance Optimizations, DXVK Corruption Fixes

NetworkManager 1.16 was released in March with WireGuard support, WiFi P2P, Intel IWD improvements, and much more. Surprisingly being released already is NetworkManager 1.18…

Source: Phoronix – NetworkManager 1.18 Released With Policy Routing Rules, VLAN Filtering For Linux Bridge

While awaiting DragonFlyBSD 5.6 as the BSD operating system’s next feature release, DragonFlyBSD 5.4.2 has been released as the newest stable point release…

Source: Phoronix – DragonFlyBSD 5.4.2 Rolls Out With Two Dozen Fixes

The Freedreno MSM DRM driver changes have been submitted to DRM-Next ahead of Linux 5.2. MSM provides the Direct Rendering Manager support around Qualcomm Adreno hardware and with this next kernel cycle is continuing to see better Adreno 600 series support…

Source: Phoronix – MSM DRM Driver Bringing Zap Shader Support To Exit Secure Mode On Adreno 600 Series

Adding to the excitement of the Linux 5.2 kernel changes are a lot of Thunderbolt improvements expected to be introduced in this next kernel cycle…

Source: Phoronix – Thunderbolt Is Seeing A Lot Of Improvements For Linux 5.2

The Netrunner Rolling Linux distribution that is based on Arch Linux / Manjaro (unlike the non-rolling release using Debian Testing) is out with a new release for this KDE-focused desktop platform…

Source: Phoronix – Netrunner Rolling 2019.04 Released With Updated KDE Desktop Bits

Linux 5.1-rc6 is larger than the previous release candidate, but he isn’t too worried right now about the condition of the upcoming Linux 5.1 kernel…

Source: Phoronix – Linux 5.1-rc6 Kernel Released In Linus Torvalds’ Easter Day Message

Most exciting this week in KDE space was seeing KWin pick up support for the NVIDIA EGLStreams implementation for Wayland with this proprietary graphics driver. Beyond the EGLStreams KWin support were also many fixes and other improvements to the desktop landing this Easter week…

Source: Phoronix – KDE Saw More System Settings Work While EGLStreams KWin Support Stole The Show

Should you have any Daktronics scoreboards, video displays, or digital billboards, mainline Linux kernel support appears to be in the works…

Source: Phoronix – A Set Of Obscure Drivers Out-Of-Tree Since Linux 2.x Will See Mainline For Linux 5.2

While initially no qualified candidates stepped forward for the 2019 Debian Project Leader elections, following the extended nomination period and voting, Sam Hartman has been elected the newest leader of Debian…

Source: Phoronix – Sam Hartman Is Debian’s Newest Project Leader, Aims To “Keep Debian Fun”

Intel’s i40e / XL710 Ethernet driver will begin supporting Dynamic Device Personalization (DDP) with the upcoming Linux 5.2 kernel…

Source: Phoronix – Intel i40e Driver Supporting Dynamic Device Personalization With Linux 5.2

One of the areas of Oracle Linux and its “Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel” that the company continues investing in and differentiating it from upstream RHEL and alternatives is around Ksplice as their means of live kernel patching while Red Hat continues with Kpatch and SUSE with kGraft…

Source: Phoronix – Oracle’s Ksplice Live Kernel Patching Picks Up Known Exploit Detection

While initially some questions were raised over the usefulness and practicality of this driver when it was first proposed on the kernel mailing list, the NULL TTY driver is set to make its maiden voyage to mainline with the upcoming Linux 5.2 kernel cycle…

Source: Phoronix – The NULL TTY Driver Is Coming To The Linux 5.2 Kernel

SuperTuxKart, the open-source racing game inspired by Mario Kart and themed around Linux/Tux, has reached its 1.0 version after being in development the past 12+ years…

Source: Phoronix – SuperTuxKart 1.0 Released For Open-Source Linux Racing

Being merged into the LLVM code-base this Saturday is JITLink, a just-in-time linker for parsing object files and letting their contents run in a target process…

Source: Phoronix – JITLink Lands In LLVM 9.0

Not only is the longtime Lima DRM driver for Arm Mali 400/450 graphics set to finally premiere with the Linux 5.2 kernel, but the Panfrost DRM driver is also being mainlined for the newer Mali graphics hardware…

Source: Phoronix – Panfrost DRM Driver Being Added To Linux 5.2 For Midgard / Bifrost Graphics

A new subsystem queued for introduction in the upcoming Linux 5.2 cycle is the Fieldbus Subsystem, which is initially being added to the staging area of the kernel…

Source: Phoronix – Linux 5.2 Is Introducing The Fieldbus Subsystem

As we’ve been expecting from NVIDIA’s recent DXR ray-tracing support back-ported to Pascal/Volta GPUs, there’s now a NVIDIA Linux driver beta that offers VK_NV_ray_tracing for pre-Turing graphics processors…

Source: Phoronix – NVIDIA 418.52.05 Linux Driver Brings Vulkan Ray-Tracing To Non-RTX GPUs