Earlier this year we began seeing patches for AMD GFX1170 graphics IP labeled as "RDNA 4m" and that was then completed with also adding GFX1171 and GFX1172 as additional targets for the AMDGPU LLVM compiler back-end and AMDGPU kernel driver. Merged today for Mesa 26.3 is now adding the GFX1171 target to Mesa 26.3 for the RADV and RadeonSI drivers.

Back in April was the AMD GFX1170

Qualcomm engineers have initiated a discussion over upstreaming Synx to the Linux kernel, which is a global synchronization framework across different parts of SoCs. Qualcomm is already using Synx internally and is reported to provide "significant" power and performance benefits.

With today's complex SoCs sporting a variety of different cores, firmware, and other diverse IP, Synx aims to be a global synchronization framework to augment current subsystem/device-specific synchronization methods like DMA fence for graphics/display. While Synx is being led by Qualcomm, this

If you happen to have a gaming headset from the latest SteelSeries Nova 5X or Nova 7 series, the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel will begin properly supporting those headsets.

The 2026 refresh of the SteelSeries Nova 5X/7 gaming headsets brought some changes and new device IDs that are needed for proper handling. SteelSeries doesn't contribute directly to the Linux kernel but is another case of customers / open-source developers picking up the slack. The HID-SteelSeries driver in the Linux kernel is

For those with one of the original Valve Steam Controllers from a decade ago and looking to make use of it with the native HID Linux driver outside of the Steam client or SDL, an important addition is coming with the Linux 7.3 kernel release later in the year.

The Linux kernel has long had the hid-steam driver for supporting the Steam Controller outside of user-space solutions like the Steam client or SDL library. But the Steam HID driver has lacked support for sensor events, which are data inputs triggered

Rust Coreutils 0.10 is out today from the uutils project for this alternative to GNU Coreutils. Rust Coreutils 0.10 development focused on additional security hardening plus also increasing the GNU test suite compatibility and robustness.

Rust Coreutils 0.10 is now passing for another 20 GNU Test Suite cases, bringing the total pass rate to 93.48% as an all-time high. These GNU compatibility updates involved better aligning on behavior, nproc handling for different CPU conditions, date out-

Mesa 26.2 stable is now available as the newest quarterly feature release for this set of open-source OpenGL and Vulkan drivers typically used on Linux systems.

Mesa 26.2 is another splendid feature update for these open-source user-space 3D drivers, especially on the Vulkan API side where much of the activity is typically focused but also still seeing good progress for Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan as well as Rusticl for OpenCL on Gallium3D.

Mesa 26.2 brings a number

One of the nifty new features of Linux 7.2 is USB4STREAM as an Intel-developed solution for quickly sending data between USB4 connected systems . Now for the upcoming Linux 7.3 cycle, a busy poll mode is being added to provide lower-latency data transfers at the expense of increased CPU activity.

Intel engineers developed the USB4STREAM protocol as a super simple way for transferring raw packets between hosts using USB4/Thunderbolt . Intel Thunderbolt expert Mika Westerberg with the assistance of Claude Opus 4

The newest Wayland compositor to talk about and discuss is Denial, a Wayland compositor focused on optimal Arch Linux integration and that embeds the Flutter engine directly into the codebase. Denial makes use of the Rust programming language and leverages Smithay to help in the compositor responsibilities.

Denial is currently considered alpha software as a Flutter-native Wayland compositor. Flutter's lead developer wrote into Phoronix and explained its design as:

"Denial does not run Flutter as an application on top of another compositor: it embeds the Flutter Engine directly,

Cloudflare today announced the open-sourcing of Cloudflare OS as an "open platform for agents, apps, and work." Cloudflare OS is an AI "operating system" but not in the traditional OS sense.

Cloudflare OS is already used internally at Cloudflare and is described in today's announcement as:

"Cloudflare OS starts with a conversation in your browser, like many other AI tools. What makes it different is that each conversation is grounded in the context and skills your organization has curated. Give your workspace a