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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Arch Linux 2023.12.01 Released with a Much-Improved Installer
If you've ever wanted to install Arch Linux, now is your time. With the latest release, the archinstall script vastly simplifies the process.
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Zorin OS 17 Beta Available for Testing
The upcoming version of Zorin OS includes plenty of improvements to take your PC to a whole new level of user-friendliness.
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Red Hat Migrates RHEL from Xorg to Wayland
If you've been wondering when Xorg will finally be a thing of the past, wonder no more, as Red Hat has made it clear.
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PipeWire 1.0 Officially Released
PipeWire was created to take the place of the oft-troubled PulseAudio and has finally reached the 1.0 status as a major update with plenty of improvements and the usual bug fixes.
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Rocky Linux 9.3 Available for Download
The latest version of the RHEL alternative is now available and brings back cloud and container images for ppc64le along with plenty of new features and fixes.
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Ubuntu Budgie Shifts How to Tackle Wayland
Ubuntu Budgie has yet to make the switch to Wayland but with a change in approaches, they're finally on track to making it happen.
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TUXEDO's New Ultraportable Linux Workstation Released
The TUXEDO Pulse 14 blends portability with power, thanks to the AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU.
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AlmaLinux Will No Longer Be "Just Another RHEL Clone"
With the release of AlmaLinux 9.3, the distribution will be built entirely from upstream sources.
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elementary OS 8 Has a Big Surprise in Store
When elementary OS 8 finally arrives, it will not only be based on Ubuntu 24.04 but it will also default to Wayland for better performance and security.
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OpenELA Releases Enterprise Linux Source Code
With Red Hat restricting the source for RHEL, it was only a matter of time before those who depended on that source struck out on their own.