Stemming from the recent discussions over NVIDIA NetGPU code that relied on another shim for interfacing between NVIDIA's proprietary driver and the open-source kernel code, a new patch is on the way for Linux 5.9 to fight back against such efforts.

As a result of that "NetGPU" code patch series and the ensuing discussion, longtime kernel developer Christoph Hellwig followed through with a set of kernel patches to tighten up access to kernel symbols exported as GPL-only and are frequently used by these open-source "

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is among the early rolling-release distributions now shipping a Linux 5.8-based kernel by default.

For those of you enjoying openSUSE Tumbleweed, this week's updates most notably bring use of Linux 5.8 . Linux 5.8 brings a lot of new features and is quite a big update all-around. But in general from my extensive testing of Linux 5.8 on many different hardware platforms, it appears to be in fairly good shape... Better than some prior 5

Following last week's release of Ubuntu 20.04.1 , the prior Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 Long Term Support series are also seeing new releases.

Ubuntu 16.04.7 and Ubuntu 18.04.5 are out today as the newest long term support point releases for those prior versions from 2016 and 2018, respectively. Ubuntu 18.04.5 brings an updated hardware enablement stack from

It's been nearly three months without a new DXVK release for mapping Direct3D 9/10/11 atop the Vulkan API while finally today there is a big feature release out.

DXVK 1.7.1 was released a few minutes ago as the first update since May. While the version number isn't significant, this version does have many changes.

DXVK 1.7.1 adds VK_EXT_4444_formats support as one of the extensions designed to help

The popular, cross-platform Unity game engine is planning for a very exciting 2021.

Unity Tech has released some of their public roadmap details concerning what they hope to accomplish in the next calendar year. Some of the highlights for Unity goals in 2021 include:

- To little surprise, fully supporting next-generation game consoles, natively support Apple's Arm-based silicon coming to market, new AR/VR platforms, and the continued mobile architectures.

- Optimizing game engine performance is

KDE has shipped their latest collection of applications with newest feature updates.

The KDE "20.08" application updates include changes like:

- Many improvements to the Dolphin file manager to improve its usability and a number of refinements that make it feel more polished.

- A number of minor usability improvements to the Konsole terminal application.

- User interface work and other fixes to the Elisa music player.

- Fixes for the Okular document viewer.

- The recently released digiKam 7.0 with deep learning powered faces management

At Intel's Architecture Day this week the company was talking about work on their new Windows graphics driver that is being timed for Xe but supporting existing generations of hardware as well. One of the interesting takeaways was seeing the Windows driver is now using the open-source "IGC" back-end.

The new Intel Windows graphics driver features a rewritten Direct3D 11 driver and various new gaming features, but what I personally found most fascinating was seeing it utilizing IGC. Yes, the Intel Graphics Compiler that

Recently I wrote about it looking like oneAPI 1.0 was lining up and now there is further confirmation of the first production release of this Intel software collection indeed coming this year.

After oneAPI was announced in late 2018 at Intel's Architecture Day, it was released in early form last year and the various software components making up this collection of interfaces to exploit the potential of Intel's diverse hardware offerings have continued to advance.

At Intel's Architecture Day 2020 this week,