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We are nearing the stable release of LLVM 22 in hopefully two weeks. Out today is the third release candidate of LLVM 22.1 for soliciting more testing of this open-source compiler stack.

Besides various small fixes throughout the compiler codebase, there are a few changes worth calling out with the LLVM 22.1-rc3 release.

First up, LLVM will be providing Windows on ARM release binaries moving forward. This change picked up for LLVM 22.1-rc3 adds support for

Linux 7.0 Brings An EFI Framebuffer Quirk For Valve's Steam Deck

Phoronix | Feb. 10, 2026, 5:19 a.m. | Original

The EFI subsystem updates have been merged for the in-development Linux 7.0 kernel. Worth mentioning here is a new quirk for helping Valve's Steam Deck handheld.

Tvrtko Ursulin of Igalia landed a fix to the EFI system frame-buffer code for fixing the EFIDRMFB and SimpleDRMFB frame-buffer drivers on Valve's Steam Deck. This quirk/fix is ultimately to allow using the frame-buffer drivers in the correct orientation and ensuring a fake mode isn't used that could lead to corrupted rendering.

NULLFS & OPEN_TREE_NAMESPACE Features Merged For Linux 7.0

Phoronix | Feb. 9, 2026, 8:49 p.m. | Original

Christian Brauner sent in a dozen VFS pull requests that are now-merged today for the Linux 7.0 kernel. The VFS pull requests worth noting right away in this article are the introduction of the NULLFS and OPEN_TREE_NAMESPACE features.

NULLFS is merged as a " completely catatonic minimal pseudo filesystem " that Brauner further elaborates as:

"Add a completely catatonic minimal pseudo filesystem called "nullfs" and make pivot_root() work in the initramfs.

Currently pivot_root() does not work on

Btrfs Brings Experimental Remap-Tree Feature & More In Linux 7.0

Phoronix | Feb. 9, 2026, 8:25 p.m. | Original

Among the pull requests merged today on this first day of the Linux 7.0 merge window are the many Btrfs file-system feature updates.

David Sterba sent in the Btrfs feature pull in advance of the Linux 6.19 stable release and thus among the early merges for kicking off the Linux 7.0 cycle. There aren't any noted performance optimizations specifically this cycle but a lot of other feature work some of which may help performance like enabling direct I/O for larger block sizes when greater than

Redox OS Gets Cargo & The Rust Compiler Running On This Open-Source OS

Phoronix | Feb. 9, 2026, 2:55 p.m. | Original

The Rust-written Redox OS open-source operating system is now able to leverage Cargo and the Rust compiler "rustc" itself running within this platform. Plus they also made a heck of a lot of other improvements too over the course of the past month. Today they published a status update to outline all of the promising advancements made to this independent OS so far in 2026.

As a big milestone reached in January, Cargo and the rustc compiler are now working on Redox itself. You are now

Intel

AMD openSIL + Coreboot Being Ported To A Modern AM5 Consumer Motherboard

Phoronix | Feb. 9, 2026, 1:50 p.m. | Original

While we are very eager for the AMD openSIL open-source CPU silicon initialization project to achieve production readiness with Zen 6 platforms for ultimately replacing AGESA , there is some experimental excitement on the way for open-source firmware enthusiasts... OpenSIL and Coreboot are being brought to an AM5 motherboard you can buy retail.

Since Zen 4 when AMD rolled out the openSIL open-source code it's been in an experimental state and just targeted a few of AMD's reference board designs. The 3mdeb open

Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance For Intel Core Ultra X7 Panther Lake

Phoronix | Feb. 9, 2026, 11:40 a.m. | Original

Last week I began publishing the many exciting Panther Lake benchmarks under Linux from the interesting CPU performance and efficiency to the much anticipated Xe3 graphics with the Intel Arc B390 graphics . Up today is a look at how the out-of-the-box performance for the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H compares under Microsoft Windows 11 and the current Ubuntu Linux 26.04 development state.

For those curious if Linux is as competitive to Windows 11 on the new Panther Lake

Blender 5.1 Lands Raycast Nodes, Blender Adjusting Release Cycle Moving Forward

Phoronix | Feb. 9, 2026, 10:01 a.m. | Original

Two interesting bits of Blender news this week for those fond of this leading open-source 3D modeling software.

Blender 5.1 transitioned to its bug-fixing beta phase last week and runs that way through 11 March when the release candidate is expected. This is in aiming for the official Blender 5.1 release around 17 March. Prior to the beta milestone in shifting to bug-fixing-only development, Blender 5.1 did squeeze in its raycast nodes functionality.

This pull landed the initial

Debian's tag2upload Reaches GA For Improving Packaging Workflow

Phoronix | Feb. 9, 2026, 9:20 a.m. | Original

Debian's tag2upload has finally reached general availability "GA" status for helping Debian developers/maintainers with an improved Git-based packaging workflow.

Debian's tag2upload has been in development for a while as a means of carrying out source-only uploads using a signed Git tag. This optional means for Debian Developers/Maintainers to carry out source uploads is an enhancement for improving the efficiency and workflow while modernizing the process.

The tag2upload Wiki page describes it as:

"tag2upload

GNU Linux-Libre 6.19 Deals With More Firmware Blobs In Intel Xe, IWLWIFI & NVIDIA Nova

Phoronix | Feb. 9, 2026, 8:51 a.m. | Original

Building off yesterday's Linux 6.19 release is now the GNU Linux-libre 6.19-gnu downstream release that strips out support for open-source drivers dependent upon binary-only microcode/firmware and other elements deemed against free software standards, removing the ability to load non-open-source kernel modules, and similar restrictions in the name of software freedom.

GNU Linux-libre 6.19-gnu continues to deal with a wide variety of kernel drivers that need to be stripped

LLVM 22.1-rc3 Released - LLVM To Provide Windows ARM Release Binaries Moving Forward

Linux 7.0 Brings An EFI Framebuffer Quirk For Valve's Steam Deck

NULLFS & OPEN_TREE_NAMESPACE Features Merged For Linux 7.0

Btrfs Brings Experimental Remap-Tree Feature & More In Linux 7.0

Redox OS Gets Cargo & The Rust Compiler Running On This Open-Source OS

AMD openSIL + Coreboot Being Ported To A Modern AM5 Consumer Motherboard

Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance For Intel Core Ultra X7 Panther Lake

Blender 5.1 Lands Raycast Nodes, Blender Adjusting Release Cycle Moving Forward

Debian's tag2upload Reaches GA For Improving Packaging Workflow

GNU Linux-Libre 6.19 Deals With More Firmware Blobs In Intel Xe, IWLWIFI & NVIDIA Nova

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