Merged today to the LLVM/Clang compiler codebase are some long overdue adjustments to the AMD Zen 4 "znver4" CPU model for more accurately assessing various latency timings and micro-ops. These values were initially copied over from the Zen 3 (znver3) target but never adjusted properly for Zen 4 until now when an independent contributor took to sorting it out.

Open-source developer "NexusXe" took to sorting out some Znver4 model deficiencies that had been copied over from Znver3 but never updated to properly

For those that happen to have the Dell G15 5530 laptop or considering this Intel Core i7 13650HX + NVIDIA GeForce RTX high-end laptop, the upcoming Linux 6.18 kernel is set to have AWCC platform profile support for this model as a nice enhancement. In turn this patch should also be back-ported to future stable Linux kernel point releases.

Dell/Alienware systems on Microsoft Windows have the Alienware Command Center (AWCC) for various controls for these

Earlier this month Intel Linux software engineers began posting patches for enabling Xe3P kernel graphics driver support with initial usage by Nova Lake processors and later the expected Celestial discrete GPUs. That initial Xe3P iGPU support is going into Linux 6.19 but expect more feature additions and optimizations in follow-on kernel cycles in 2026. Similarly the patches have now begun coming out for enabling the display engine capabilities for "Xe3P_LPD" for actually being able to drive displays (monitors)

Following last week LLVM/Clang 22 adding Intel Nova Lake with "-march=novalake" support , the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) has now received similar treatment for the promising next-generation desktop processors.

The initial Nova Lake compiler enablement patch was posted earlier this week and merged today for GCC 16. This code is now in GCC Git and will be part of the GCC 16.1 stable release due out in March~April, still well ahead of Intel Nova Lake processors actually shipping.

For those that have been considering the ASUS ROG STRIX X870E-H GAMING WIFI7 motherboard for a high-end AMD Ryzen 9000 series desktop, sensor monitoring support will soon be working under Linux.

The ASUS ROG STRIX X870E-H GAMING WIFI7 is a top-tier desktop motherboard with two PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slots, 16 + 2 + 1 power design, WiFi 7 connectivity built-in, and other features aligned with top of stack

Theo de Raadt released OpenBSD 7.8 today as the newest feature release to this popular BSD operating system.

OpenBSD 7.8 features initial support for the Raspberry Pi 5 when using the console over serial port. OpenBSD 7.8 also brings Apple ARM improvements and some work on Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 Elite support, including new drivers for the Qualcomm Snapdragon DRM graphics and Qualcomm DisplayPort controller support.

OpenBSD 7.8 also brings multiple improvements around enabling AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (AMD SEV) support with support for the PSP

Earlier today the AlmaLinux project announced their plans for supporting the Btrfs file-system contrary to the stance by Red Hat with upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux. They have capped off the day now by releasing the AlmaLinux 10.1 beta complete with this new Btrfs support.

AlmaLinux 10.1 Beta is now available across x86_64, x86_64_v2, AArch64, PPC64LE, and IBM s390x platforms. This beta release

Upstreamed for the current Linux 6.18 cycle was finally having mainline support for the ESWIN EIC770 SoC with its four SiFive P550 cores plus having the DeviceTree support for the SiFive HiFive Premier P550 RISC-V development board using that SoC. Sadly not making it though for Linux 6.18 was the Ethernet controller support for the EIC7700 SoC but that is now destined to arrive in Linux 6.19.

Linux 6.18 has the

It's been nearly a decade since Red Hat notably deprecated Btrfs back in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 after it being a tech preview in earlier versions of RHEL. While upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 remains on XFS and supporting the likes of Stratis Storage with LVM, AlmaLinux today announced that their AlmaLinux 10.1 release will support Btrfs.

AlmaLinux announced today that AlmaLinux 10.1 will support Btrfs file-system installations and is already supported in their AlmaLinux OS Kitten.

The AlmaLinux announcement applauds