Zack's Kernel News
Community Notebook: Kernel News
Chronicler Zack Brown reports on the latest news, views, dilemmas, and developments within the Linux kernel community.
Premium Real-Time Mode Support
Vernon Mauery submitted his IBM Real-Time “SMI Free” mode driver for inclusion in the official kernel. The driver would provide a SysFS interface to switch the entire system into and out of IBM Premium Real-Time Mode (PRTM) on x86 hardware that supports it. This functionality would allow user code to disable System Management Interrupts (SMIs), thus allowing the code to decouple itself from the operating system’s normal security and resource allocation controls and interact directly with the hardware in otherwise impossible ways. This feature can do lots of fun things. It can provide an environment for real-time applications to run without fear of being interrupted; it can allow debuggers to do neat stuff; and it can allow really spectacular security breaches on the system.
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News
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NixOS 21.11 Now Available for Download
NixOS “Porcupine” has been made available for installation and includes numerous improvements.
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KDE Plasma Developers Introduce a GNOME-Like Overview
A new overview effect makes it easier for users to interact with both Plasma Activities and Virtual Desktops.
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Rocky Linux 8.5 Now Available with Secure Boot Support
The latest iteration of CentOS alternative, Rocky Linux has arrived and includes numerous updates as well as support for Secure Boot.
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System76 Developing a New Desktop Environment
The makers of Pop!_OS are currently in the early stages of creating a brand new, non-GNOME, desktop environment.
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Hetzner Opens New Location in the USA
The Hetzner cost-effective Cloud solution has arrived in the United States to offer cloud servers that offer solid performance without a high price.
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KDE Plasma 5.24 Introduces Fingerprint Reader Support
The next release of the KDE Plasma desktop environment will include support for fingerprint readers for session authentication and more.
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Ubuntu 21.10 Released and Finally Includes Gnome 40
The most anticipated update to Ubuntu is finally here and the workflow couldn't be better.
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Linux Can Now Run on Apple’s M1 Chipset
Linux users looking to take advantage of Apple Silicon are about to get their wish with the M1 chipset.
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MX Linux 21 RC Candidate Available For Testing
The MX Linux development team has released the RC images for MX Linux 21 for testing purposes.
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Fedora 35 is Shaping Up to Be an Impressive Release
Although the beta version of Fedora’s upcoming release is behind schedule, the Linux distribution is still slotted for October and will include numerous bug fixes and some exciting new features.