Graphics: RenderDoc, Mesa, and Vulkan

• RenderDoc 1.17 Released For This Leading Open-Source Graphics Debugging Tool - Phoronix

  RenderDoc 1.17 released this week as the newest version of this leading cross-platform, cross-API graphics debugging utility. RendertDoc 1.17 continues to be a gem for developers working with Vulkan and OpenGL along with Direct3D 11/12. RenderDoc as the MIT-licensed frame-capture-based graphics debugger works extremely well for game/engine developers as well as GPU driver developers in working through different issues.

• DMA-BUF Feedback Support For Wayland Lands In Mesa 22.0's EGL Code - Phoronix

  Landing in Mesa on Black Friday was DMA-BUF Feedback support within the EGL code as another important step forward for Wayland. Introduced earlier this week was Wayland Protocols 1.24 and the primary addition to that collection of protocols is DMA-BUF feedback support. The DMA-BUF "feedback" support is important for Wayland multi-GPU systems where needing to know more information about the GPU device used by the compositor and for being able to efficiently exchange buffers between the secondary and primary GPUs.

• RADV Vulkan Driver Finally Adds VK_KHR_synchronization2 Support - Phoronix

  The Mesa Radeon Vulkan driver "RADV" has added support for the prominent VK_KHR_synchronization2 extension introduced earlier this year. Added back in February with Vulkan 1.2.170 was VK_KHR_synchronization2 for simplifying the core synchronization APIs of this industry-standard graphics API. VK_KHR_synchronization2 makes Vulkan synchronization handling easier to deal with Those interested in the changes with the "synchronization2" revision can see this Khronos blog post going over the Vulkan synchronization handling in detail along with the changes from this extension.

Kernel: Futex2, Fixes, and Other New Features for Linux 5.16

• Futex2 Brings Linux Gaming To The Next Level - Invidious

  Futex2 has been a work in progress by Valve and collabora for a very long time and it seems like it's finally going to make it's way into the kernel.

• Patch out for Alder Lake Linux bug that reminds of the Windows 11 Ryzen CPPC issue - Neowin

  Linux boss Linus Torvalds merged earlier today several important patches for Intel CPU generally related to performance states (P-states) on Linux.

• Linux 5.16 Merges Fix For One Of The Intel Alder Lake Issues - Phoronix

  Merged this Friday afternoon into the Linux 5.16 development kernel is fixing a performance issue affecting some Intel Alder Lake motherboards. The fix merged a short time ago is the item previously covered within Linux ITMT Patch Fixes Intel "Alder Lake" Hybrid Handling For Some Systems. As explained in that prior article, TurboBoost Max 3.0 / ITMT (Turbo Boost Max Technology) code within the kernel isn't being enabled for some systems, particularly if overclocking or even any memory XMP / optimal settings. The ASUS Z690 board I've been primarily using for the i9-12900K was affected as are numerous other boards. I've also heard reports of some motherboards running purely stock are even having this issue.

• Intel Preparing USI Stylus Support For Linux - Phoronix

  Intel open-source driver engineers have been working on USI stylus support for the Linux kernel. The Universal Stylus Initiative (USI) aims to offer interoperability of active styluses across touchscreen devices. The Universal Stylus Initiative has a goal of allowing all styluses that comply with USI to work across devices. USI is backed by the likes of Google who wants to see USI working uniformally across Chromebooks, Dell and other hardware vendors, Intel is also involved and leading the upstream Linux support patches, and peripheral vendors like Logitech are also supporting the standard. Other big names like Wacom, Samsung, and many other players from desktop to laptops to mobile.

Open Hardware/Modding With LineageOS and Arduino

• Ham Radio Gets Brain Transplant | Hackaday

  Old radios didn’t have much in the way of smarts. But as digital synthesis became more common, radios often had as much digital electronics in them as RF circuits. The problem is that digital electronics get better and better every year, so what looked like high-tech one year is quaint the next. [IMSAI Guy] had an Icom IC-245 and decided to replace the digital electronics inside with — among other things — an Arduino.

• My phone - November 2021

  My current phone is the Google Pixel 3a from 2019. It’s running the LineageOS operating system without the Open GApps stack (GApps is short for “Google Apps”). This means there’s no proprietary software or tracking from Google on the phone by default.

• PiGlass V2 Embraces The New Raspberry Pi Zero 2 | Hackaday

  Well, that certainly didn’t take long. It’s been just about a month since the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 hit the market, and we’re already seeing folks revisit old projects to reap the benefits of the drop-in upgrade that provides five times the computational power in the same form factor. Take for example the PiGlass v2 that [Matt] has been working on. He originally put the Pi Zero wearable together back in 2018, and while it featured plenty of bells and whistles like a VuFine+ display, 5 MP camera, and bone conduction audio, the rather anemic hardware of the original Zero kept it from reaching its true potential.

October/November in KDE Itinerary

Since the last summary KDE Itinerary has been moving with big steps towards the upcoming 21.12 release, with work on individual transport modes, more convenient ticket access, trip editing, a new health certificate UI, better transfer handling and many more improvements.

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