The Daily Brief — Tech Edition

Daily tech news, edited and dated.

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Wednesday, 08 July 2026

73 stories filed.

Astro 7.0

Hacker News ·

Article URL: https://astro.build/blog/astro-7/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48821653 Points: 139 # Comments: 34

Discussion: Hacker News thread →

Razer Certifying Their First Laptop For Linux: Razer Blade 18 RZ09-0582

Phoronix ·

Razer is a brand synonymous with gaming and finally in 2026 they are in the process of certifying their first laptop for Ubuntu Linux. This laptop going through Ubuntu Linux certification is the Razer Blade 18 RZ09-0582 and it offers incredible performance with the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor and GeForce RTX 5090 graphics but with that also comes a very high price tag.

NVIDIA Confirms Some Rosa CPU Details With Its Rigel Core

Phoronix ·

In a blog post today talking up the single threaded CPU performance of their Vera CPU with Olympus cores, NVIDIA confirmed a few basic details of their next-gen Rosa CPU featuring their "Rigel" core...

98% isn't much

Hacker News ·

Article URL: https://whynothugo.nl/journal/2026/07/03/98-isnt-very-much/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48816959 Points: 436 # Comments: 277

Discussion: Hacker News thread →

AF_ALG "Nightmare" Being Further Limited In Linux 7.3 With New Sysctl Knob

Phoronix ·

The Linux kernel's AF_ALG interface was deprecated in Linux 7.2. This interface for letting user-space programs interact directly with the Linux kernel crypto API has proven to be a "massive attack surface" due to a variety of security concerns. With its deprecation in Linux 7.2, some AF_ALG features are already removed and for Linux 7.3 this interface is being further restrained...

"I'll Make The Linux Kernel Mailing List Burn": Prominent LLVM Linux Developer Returns

Phoronix ·

One of the original developers behind the work to allow the Linux kernel to be compiled using LLVM/Clang as an alternative to the GCC compiler is now back in the saddle working on LLVM Linux support. LLVM/Clang support for building the Linux kernel has been important for improving code portability and addressing GCC'isms, making use of LLVM compiler features not yet found with the GNU toolchain,…

EHEA 10Gb Ethernet Driver Being Retired By IBM As A Relic Of Outdated POWER Hardware

Phoronix ·

In 2026 it's not too surprising when seeing old PCMCIA and ISA drivers being removed from the mainline Linux kernel source tree and old very low-speed network interfaces, with arguably the most surprising fast being how long they lasted in the mainline kernel. Meanwhile for the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel, one of the first 10Gb Ethernet drivers is already set for retirement from the mainline Linux…

Microsoft Lands Initial AV1 Encoding Using DirectX 12 + HMFT Within Mesa 26.2

Phoronix ·

The newest, unexpected addition to the Mesa codebase by Microsoft engineers is contributed accelerated AV1 video encoding on the GPU using a combination of DirectX 12 and the Hardware Media Foundation Transform (HMFT) support that is part of the Windows Media Foundation layer...

Vulkan Video H.264/H.265 Encode Now Working For Intel Alchemist GPUs On Linux

Phoronix ·

Earlier this year Vulkan Video encode was disabled on newer generations of Intel graphics hardware due to insufficient testing with the Intel ANV open-source driver. That impacted Gen12.5 graphics and newer - basically Alchemist and anything newer. Now at least Gen12.5 graphics with the likes of the Arc A-Series is seeing H.264 and H.265 encoding re-enabled...

Marek Olšák At Valve Lands RADV Code That Can "Double Performance" With Some VRS Cases

Phoronix ·

Longtime AMD Linux graphics driver expert Marek Olšák, who joined Valve earlier this year and now focusing more on RADV rather than the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver, has seen some of his latest work now merged for Mesa 26.2. Marek landed a big overhaul to the variable rate shading (VRS) code that in some cases can double the performance...

Ryzen AI Developer Platform: AMD's Own Linux Distribution Built Atop Debian

Phoronix ·

With the AMD Ryzen AI Halo developer platform there is the option of ordering this Ryzen AI Max+ mini PC with either Microsoft Windows 11 or "Linux OS". When receiving a AMD Ryzen AI Halo review sample last month, I fully expected it to just be an Ubuntu LTS install with ROCm preloaded. I was quite surprised when powering it up to find that it's an OS called the AMD Ryzen AI Developer Platform 1…

AMD Ryzen AI Halo Is An Excellent & Powerful Mini PC With Fully Open-Source Software

Phoronix ·

Earlier this year AMD announced the Ryzen AI Halo as their in-house mini PC offering built around their leading Ryzen AI Max+ "Strix Halo" platform. After pre-orders began last month, the Ryzen AI Halo is officially beginning to ship this week and over the past few weeks we have been testing it out at Phoronix.

Linux 7.3 Expected To "Flatten The Pick" For Better Scheduling While Gaming & More

Phoronix ·

Going back to early May there were patches for improving the Linux scheduler to help with gaming performance on old "potato" hardware by providing better cgroup scheduling. Those patches, referred to as the "flatten the pick" patch series, are now slated for introduction in the Linux 7.3 kernel...

Intel i915 Driver Nearly Ready To "Work Well" With RT Linux Kernel Sans Display Support

Phoronix ·

When it comes to the real-time "RT" patches carried outside of the Linux kernel, a number of them pertain to adjustments around the Intel i915 kernel DRM graphics driver. The mainline Linux kernel and its RT support depend upon not building "PREEMPT_RT" for the i915 driver support while patches have been worked on recently for making this Intel kernel graphics driver code play nicely with…

Pioneer DJM-S11 Professional DJ Mixer To Be Supported By Linux 7.3

Phoronix ·

The Pioneer DJM-S11 is a professional scratch style 2-channel DJ mixer that retails for $2,269 USD. But if currently connecting this expensive piece of kit to Linux, it does nothing and is unusable. With 87 new lines of code, it will begin to work with the Linux 7.3 kernel later this year...

Uniwill Laptop Driver Preparing A Number Of Features For Linux 7.3

Phoronix ·

The Unwill laptop driver on Linux for supporting various device-specific features by that major OEM/ODM will be seeing several new features with the Linux 7.3 cycle later this year. One of the most notable users of the Unwill driver is Bavarian Linux PC vendor TUXEDO Computers...