This month the Linux Foundation announced version 3.0 of DentOS, an open source network operating system using the Linux kernel, Switchdev, and other Linux-based projects for a standardized network operating system "without abstractions or overhead," according to the project's web page. "All underlying infrastructure — including ASIC and Silicon for networking and datapath — is treated equally; while existing abstractions, APIs, drivers, low-level overhead, and other open software are simplified. DENT unites silicon vendors, ODMs, SIs, OEMs, and end users across all verticals to enable the transition to disaggregated networks."

Or, as the Linux Foundation, the operating system provides "a flexible and customizable platform for network administrators to manage their networks." DENT provides access to open source-based switches at a lower cost and with more flexibility compared to proprietary switches with locked ecosystems. Network wiring closets in many facilities--including retail stores, warehousing, remote locations, enterprises, and small and mid-sized businesses--are often small, requiring a compact solution for network management. Additionally, staff expertise may be limited, and branch-office switches from leading suppliers can require costly contracts. DENT can be easily deployed on white-box hardware in small spaces, providing an efficient and cost-effective solution for network management. As a result, DENT deployment can significantly enhance network management in a wide range of environments, providing greater efficiency, reliability, and scalability...

DentOS enables Amazon's Just Walk Out Technology to connect and manage thousands of devices like cameras, sensors, entry and exit gates, and access points on the network edge.

For Red Hat's 30th anniversary, North Carolina's News & Observer newspaper ran a special four-part series of articles.

In the first article Red Hat co-founder Bob Young remembers Red Hat's first big breakthrough: winning InfoWorld's "OS of the Year" award in 1998 — at a time when Microsoft's Windows controlled 85% of the market. "How is that possible," Young said, "that one of the world's biggest technology companies, on this strategically critical product, loses the product of the year to a company with 50 employees in the tobacco fields of North Carolina?" The answer, he would tell the many reporters who suddenly wanted to learn about his upstart company, strikes at "the beauty" of open-source software.

"Our engineering team is an order of magnitude bigger than Microsoft's engineering team on Windows, and I don't really care how many people they have," Young would say. "Like they may have thousands of the smartest operating system engineers that they could scour the planet for, and we had 10,000 engineers by comparison...."

Young was a 40-year-old Canadian computer equipment salesperson with a software catalog when he noticed what Marc Ewing was doing. [Ewing was a recent college graduate bored with his two-month job at IBM, selling customized Linux as a side hustle.] It's pretty primitive, but it's going in the right direction, Young thought. He began reselling Ewing's Red Hat product. Eventually, he called Ewing, and the two met at a tech conference in New York City. "I needed a product, and Marc needed some marketing help," said Young, who was living in Connecticut at the time. "So we put our two little businesses together."

Red Hat incorporated in March 1993, with the earliest employees operating the nascent business out of Ewing's Durham apartment. Eventually, the landlord discovered what they were doing and kicked them out.
The four articles capture the highlights. ("A visual effects group used its Linux 4.1 to design parts of the 1997 film Titanic.") And it doesn't leave out Red Hat's skirmishes with Microsoft. ("Microsoft was owned by the richest person in the world. Red Hat engineers were still linking servers together with extension cords. ") "We were changing the industry and a lot of companies were mad at us," says Michael Ferris, Red Hat's VP of corporate development/strategy. Soon there were corporate partnerships with Netscape, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Dell, and IBM — and when Red Hat finally goes public in 1999, its stock sees the eighth-largest first-day gain in Wall Street history, rising in value in days to over $7 billion and "making overnight millionaires of its earliest employees."

But there's also inspiring details like the quote painted on the wall of Red Hat's headquarters in Durham: "Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era..." It's fun to see the story told by a local newspaper, with subheadings like "It started with a student from Finland" and "Red Hat takes on the Microsoft Goliath."

Something I'd never thought of. 2001's 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center "destroyed the principal data centers of many Wall Street investment banks, which were housed in the twin towers. With their computers wiped out, financial institutions had to choose whether to rebuild with standard proprietary software or the emergent open source. Many picked the latter." And by the mid-2000s, "Red Hat was the world's largest provider of Linux...' according to part two of the series. "Soon, Red Hat was servicing more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies." By then, even the most vehement former critics were amenable to Red Hat's kind of software. Microsoft had begun to integrate open source into its core operations. "Microsoft was on the wrong side of history when open source exploded at the beginning of the century, and I can say that about me personally," Microsoft President Brad Smith later said.

In the 2010s, "open source has won" became a popular tagline among programmers. After years of fighting for legitimacy, former Red Hat executives said victory felt good. "There was never gloating," Tiemann said.

"But there was always pride."
In 2017 Red Hat's CEO answered questions from Slashdot's readers.

Microsoft is rewriting core Windows libraries in the Rust programming language, and the more memory-safe code is already reaching developers. From a report: David "dwizzle" Weston, director of OS security for Windows, announced the arrival of Rust in the operating system's kernel at BlueHat IL 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel, last month. "You will actually have Windows booting with Rust in the kernel in probably the next several weeks or months, which is really cool," he said. "The basic goal here was to convert some of these internal C++ data types into their Rust equivalents."

Microsoft showed interest in Rust several years ago as a way to catch and squash memory safety bugs before the code lands in the hands of users; these kinds of bugs were at the heart of about 70 percent of the CVE-listed security vulnerabilities patched by the Windows maker in its own products since 2006. The Rust toolchain strives to prevent code from being built and shipped that is exploitable, which in an ideal world reduces opportunities for miscreants to attack weaknesses in software. Simply put, Rust is focused on memory safety and similar protections, which cuts down on the number of bad bugs in the resulting code. Rivals like Google have already publicly declared their affinity for Rust.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet, written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols: The latest Linux kernel is out with a slew of new features -- and, for once, this release has been nice and easy. [...] Speaking of Rust, everyone's favorite memory-safe language, the new kernel comes with user-mode Linux support for Rust code. Miguel Ojeda, the Linux kernel developer, who's led the efforts to bring Rust to Linux, said the additions mean we're, "getting closer to a point where the first Rust modules can be upstreamed."

Other features in the Linux 6.3 kernel include support and enablement for upcoming and yet-to-be-released Intel and AMD CPUs and graphics hardware. While these updates will primarily benefit future hardware, several changes in this release directly impact today's users' day-to-day experience. The kernel now supports AMD's automatic Indirect Branch Restricted Speculation (IBRS) feature for Spectre mitigation, providing a less performance-intensive alternative to the retpoline speculative execution.

Linux 6.3 also includes new power management drivers for ARM and RISC-V architectures. RISC-V has gained support for accelerated string functions via the Zbb bit manipulation extension, while ARM received support for scalable matrix extension 2 instructions. For filesystems, Linux 6.3 brings AES-SHA2-based encryption support for NFS, optimizations for EXT4 direct I/O performance, low-latency decompression for EROFS, and a faster Brtfs file-system driver. Bottom line: many file operations will be a bit more secure and faster.

For gamers, the new kernel provides a native Steam Deck controller interface in HID. It also includes compatibility for the Logitech G923 Xbox edition racing wheel and improvements to the 8BitDo Pro 2 wired game controllers. Who says you can't game on Linux? Single-board computers, such as BannaPi R3, BPI-M2 Pro, and Orange Pi R1 Plus, also benefit from updated drivers in this release. There's also support for more Wi-Fi adapters and chipsets. These include: Realtek RTL8188EU Wi-Fi adapter support; Qualcomm Wi-Fi 7 wireless chipset support; and Ethernet support for NVIDIA BlueField 3 DPU. For users dealing with complex networks that have both old-school and modern networks, the new kernel can also handle multi-path TCP handling mixed flows with IPv4 and IPv6. Linux 6.3 is available from kernel.org. You can learn how to compile the Linux kernel yourself here.

Microsoft is heading further down the path of advertising its own services in Windows 11, with different ads now popping up in the Start menu. From a report: To be precise, this is Windows 11 preview build 23435, which was just released to the Dev channel. As Microsoft puts it: "We are continuing the exploration of badging on the Start menu with several new treatments for users logging in with local user accounts to highlight the benefits of signing in with a Microsoft account (MSA)." So, the translation of this is that 'badging' is essentially advertising ('badgering' would perhaps be more accurate), and it's something we've recently seen with Windows 11 urging users to perform a cloud backup (in OneDrive).

In this new preview build, the prodding stick is being employed to nudge those who haven't enlisted for a Microsoft Account (who remain using a local account) into signing up for an MSA. Compared to the previous cloud backup prompt on the Start menu, it's even clearer that this is advertising because it's fully selling the benefits of having a Microsoft account. For example, Microsoft tells you how hooking your Windows 11 installation into an MSA will ensure that your PC is kept backed up and more secure, or that it'll keep your settings synced across multiple devices.

Back in 2021, Samsung brought SmartThings to Android Auto. Google is now opening the door for more smart home/Internet of Things (IoT) apps on Android Auto and Automotive. 9to5Google reports: Android Auto today supports media and mapping/navigation apps. Google is now "enabling developers to bring [IoT] apps to cars." This might include controlling home security and doors from a touchscreen UI rather than having to rely on voice commands (assuming Google Assistant supports your home ecosystem). Google offers driving-optimized templates in the Android for Cars App Library, with testing via the Automotive OS emulator for Android Automotive OS and the DHU for Android Auto. Expect a consistent grid-based layout throughout apps. In fact, "drivers of cars using Android Auto can now download IOT apps developed with the Android for Cars App Library immediately from Google Play."

An anonymous reader shares a report: For Red Hat, which turned 30 on March 27, it was a cause for celebration. From a business that got started in one of its co-founder's wife's sewing room, it became the first billion-dollar pure-play open-source company and then the engine driving IBM. It has been a long strange trip. Sure, today, the tech world is dominated by Linux and open source software, but in 1993, Linux was merely an obscure operating system known only to enthusiasts. Red Hat played a significant role in transforming the "just a hobby" operating system into today's major IT powerhouse. Red Hat co-founder Bob Young, who previously ran a rental typewriter business, was one of those who became intrigued by Linux. In 1993, he established ACC Corporation, a catalog company that distributed Slackware Linux CDs and open-source software.

[...] In 2003, Paul Cormier, then Red Hat's vice president of engineering and now the company's chairman, spearheaded the shift from the inexpensive prosumer Red Hat Linux distribution to the full business-oriented Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). At the time, many Linux users hated the idea. Even inside Red Hat, Cormier said that many engineers were initially opposed to the new business model, causing some to leave the company while others stayed. The change also upset many users who felt Red Hat was abandoning its original customers. However, enterprise clients had a different perspective. Whitehurst, who became Red Hat CEO in 2008, said, "Once RHEL was in the market, we had to fully support it to make it truly consumable for the enterprise." They succeeded, and Red Hat continued to grow. This is the model that turned Red Hat into the first billion-dollar-a-quarter pure open-source company. Impressive for a business built around an operating system once considered suitable only for the "lunatic fringe." Then, in 2018, IBM acquired Red Hat for a cool $34 billion. There was nothing crazy about that move.

[...] Another change that was already present in Red Hat, a shift towards supporting the cloud, has accelerated. Today, while RHEL remains the heart of the business, the Linux-powered cloud has become increasingly important. In particular, Red Hat OpenShift, its Kubernetes-powered hybrid cloud application platform, is more important than ever. Where does Red Hat go from here? When I last talked to Cormier and Red Hat's latest CEO, Matt Hicks, they told me that they'd keep moving forward with the hybrid cloud. After all, as Cormier pointed out, "the cloud wouldn't be here" without Linux and open source. As for Red Hat's relationship with IBM, Cormier said, "The red lines were red, and the blue lines were blue, and that will stay the same."

Andrew Cunningham writes via Ars Technica: Microsoft is aware of the problems running Windows on the Steam Deck and other similar handheld Windows PCs, and at least some developers inside the company have spent time thinking of ways to address them. That's the thrust of a leaked presentation (posted in two parts by Twitter user _h0x0d_) about a new "Handheld Mode" for Windows, developed as part of an internal Microsoft hackathon in September 2022.

As presented, Handheld Mode includes several components: a new first-time setup screen that simplifies driver installation and setup; an improved touchscreen keyboard that fits better on a 7-inch screen and can be controlled Xbox-style with the built-in buttons and joysticks; a simplified Nintendo Switch-esque game launcher; and improved OS-wide controller support thanks to the open source Steamdeck Windows Controller Driver (SWICD) project. The presentation also calls for other changes to Windows' default behaviors, like always opening apps in full-screen mode when in Handheld Mode, better UI scaling for small screens, and "mapping of controls to common Windows functions."

The first beta of Google's Android 14 OS is available to download today, introducing new features focused on system navigation, privacy, performance, and user customization. From a report We already had a good idea of what to expect thanks to the first two developer-only previews, but the beta release is the first opportunity for the general public to test the changes. Gesture navigation has been updated to include a more conspicuous Material You-themed back arrow that adjusts to complement the device's theme or wallpaper. Aside from arguably being more aesthetically pleasing, the updated back arrow is designed to help users better understand Android 14's predictive back gesture experience, which now previews the screen users are navigating to within applications.

Android 14 also introduces a new system share sheet -- the page that opens when you tap to share content. This allows developers to add custom app-specific actions to the top of the share menu. Google describes this as a "superior" experience compared to the existing Android share sheets in which share targets (the app you're sharing content to) are always sorted alphabetically. The new share sheet also uses more app signals to determine where the direct share targets that appear toward the top of the page should rank (though it's not clear what exactly those signals are).

An anonymous reader writes: Windows users don't like it when Microsoft changes long-used and familiar functions in its OS, so altering something that's been the same for 28 years is always going to bring controversy. Nevertheless, it seems that the Redmond firm is planning on changing the Print Screen button into a key that opens the Windows 11 Snipping Tool. The Print Screen button has performed the same function in the Windows operating system since Windows 95: taking a screenshot of the current screen and copying it to the clipboard, usually so it can be edited in another program. But Windows Latest discovered that Microsoft is changing the default function of the Print Screen key in Windows 11. In the Windows 11 Beta preview builds 22621.1546 and 22624.1546, hitting the key will open the Windows Snipping Tool, Windows' built-in screenshotting tool that's currently accessed by pressing the Windows logo Key + Shift + S.

metrix007 writes: OpenBSD, the OS that earned an exaggerated reputation for security simply by disabling services by default, has released version 7.3. Plenty of new improvements and bug fixes including to the editor, although still no real security features to help lock down a system, no virtual machine support for non-OpenBSD guests and no modern file system.

Slashdot reader unixbhaskar writes: A company in the U.K. calling itself Minifree has started to ship old Thinkpad (specifically the X series and T series models) with Libreboot firmware. Which is based on coreboot firmware.
More specifically, Libreboot is the free-as-in-speech replacement for proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware, the site notes, "offering faster boots speeds, better security and many advanced features compared to most proprietary boot firmware." Those advanced features include the GNU project's multiple-OS-booting "grand unified bootloader" GNU GRUB directly in the boot flash, along with several other customization options. "The aim is simple: make it easy to have a computer that was made to run entirely on Free Software at every level, meaning no proprietary software of any kind. That includes the boot firmware, operating system, drivers and applications."

The Libreboot project's founder is also the founder of Minifree, and the profits from Minifree's sales directly fund the Libreboot project. (The whole Minifree web site runs on Libreboot-powered servers, on a network behind a Libreboot-powered router...) Their site points out that Minifree Ltd has also privately funded several new board ports to coreboot, including 90,000 USD to Raptor Engineering for ASUS KGPE-D16 and KCMA-D8 libreboot support, and 4000 AUD to Damien Zammit for Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L and Intel D510MO libreboot support.

The installed OS on the laptops is either encrypted Debian (KDE Plasma desktop environment), with full driver support, or "other Linux distro/BSD (e.g. OpenBSD, FreeBSD) at your request... Advanced features like encrypted /boot (GNU+Linux only), signed kernels and more are available." And the laptops are also shipped — worldwide — with "your choice of 480/960GB SSD or 2x480GB/2x960GB RAID1 SSDs, with good batteries and 16GB RAM. Free technical support via email/IRC plus 5-year warranty."

But judging by their FAQ, the support is even more extensive. "If you brick your Minifree laptop when updating Libreboot, Minifree will unbrick it for free if you send it back to us. Even if your warranty has expired! However, such bricking is rare."

A YouTuber has published a video where he tricks ChatGPT into generating usable Windows 95 activation keys. Tom's Hardware reports: After asking Open AI's chatbot directly for Windows 95 keys, he received an expected reasoned refusal. YouTuber Enderman then asked the same thing but from a different angle. The result was a success which was somewhat limited by ChatGPT's ability to process natural language requests into formulas. [...] Some of the tested results were checked by attempting to activate a fresh Windows 95 install in a virtual machine. While the keys passed a casual inspection, it turns out that only about 1-in-30 keys seem to work as expected.

So what is the problem with these keys? Enderman complains that "the only issue keeping ChatGPT from successfully generating valid Windows 95 keys almost every attempt is the fact that it can't count the sum of digits and it doesn't know divisibility." In the five-digit string divisible by seven section, the AI appears to provide a stream of random numbers that don't pass this simple mathematical test. The report adds: "[W]hile quizzing ChatGPT about key generating may be fun, it would have probably been more productive to manipulate the AI into writing a Python script to generate a conforming key or to DIY it."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It has been two years and four months since the first Apple Silicon Mac hit the market, and now Autodesk has finally updated some of its massively popular professional applications (AutoCAD and Maya) to run natively on M1 and M2 chips. The availability of AutoCAD for Mac 2024 was announced in a blog post on Autodesk's website on March 28. Like other major AutoCAD updates, it adds new features like expanded automation tools and easier workflows, but the announcement that "for the first time, AutoCAD for Mac 2024 and AutoCAD LT for Mac 2024 now run natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon architectures, including M1 and M2 chips in the M-series chips" is clearly the headlining feature.

Autodesk claims that Apple Silicon support "can increase overall performance by up to two times" compared to the 2023 version of AutoCAD. A day later, on March 29, Autodesk revealed the 2024 update for Maya, its 3D modeling software chiefly used in game development, film production, and visual effects. Maya 2024 brings native Apple Silicon support in addition to a slew of new features, including the LookDevX material editor, Hydra support, and so on. But in contrast to many other makers of widespread professional software in similar industries, such as Adobe and Unity, Autodesk's efforts to support Apple Silicon -- which were announced two years ago -- have been ongoing for an interminably long time. Even open source Maya competitor Blender beat Autodesk to the punch.

While still CEO of now-collapsed FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried transferred millions of dollars to his father. Some of those funds have since been used to pay for his mounting legal fees, Forbes os reporting, citing two sources close to the company. From a report: Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of fallen cryptocurrency exchange FTX who claimed to have just $100,000 in his bank account last November, is preparing for trial in October backed by a roster of powerful attorneys. But it has remained unclear, until now, how the former billionaire would afford his pricey defense. Forbes has learned that Bankman-Fried has been paying legal fees from a multi-million dollar gift he gave his father with money borrowed from FTX's sister company. In 2021, while CEO of FTX, Bankman-Fried made a large monetary gift to his father, Stanford Law professor Joseph Bankman, two sources with operational knowledge of both companies told Forbes. It was funded by a loan from the exchange's trading firm, Alameda Research, they said.

Bankman-Fried -- who has pleaded not guilty to 12 criminal charges including wire fraud, money laundering and securities fraud, and faces an additional bribery charge -- is accused of misappropriating FTX customer funds through Alameda dating back to the exchange's founding in 2019. A source close to Bankman-Fried told Forbes that his defense costs are likely in the single-digit-millions range. "I didn't steal funds, and I certainly didn't stash billions away," he wrote on Substack earlier this year. Two additional sources familiar with the family told Forbes that Bankman once begged his son to put away savings, but Bankman-Fried reportedly declined.

Windows Central reports: According to my sources who are familiar with Microsoft's plans, the company is once again hard at work on a new project internally that's designed to modernize the Windows platform with many of the same innovations it was working on for Windows Core OS, but with a focus on native compatibility for legacy Win32 applications on devices where it makes sense. The project is codenamed CorePC and is designed to be a modular and customizable variant of Windows for Microsoft to leverage different form factors with. Not all Windows PCs need the full breadth of legacy Win32 app support, and CorePC will allow Microsoft to configure "editions" of Windows with varying levels of feature and app compatibility.

The big change with CorePC versus the current shipping version of Windows is that CorePC is state separated, just like Windows Core OS. State separation enables faster updates and a more secure platform via read-only partitions that are inaccessible to the user and third-party apps, just like on iPadOS or Android. [...] CorePC splits up the OS into multiple partitions, which is key to enabling faster OS updates. State separation also enables faster and more reliable system reset functionality, which is important for Chromebook compete devices in the education sector.

[...] My sources tell me CorePC will allow Microsoft to finally deliver a version of Windows that truly competes with Chromebooks in OS footprint, performance, and capabilities. [...] Microsoft is also working on a version of CorePC that meet the current feature set and capabilities of Windows desktop, but with state separation enabled for those faster OS updates and improved security benefits. The company is working on a compatibility layer codenamed Neon for legacy apps that require a shared state OS to function, too. Lastly, I hear that Microsoft is experimenting with a version of CorePC that's "silicon-optimized," designed to reduce legacy overhead, focus on AI capabilities, and vertically optimize hardware and software experiences in a way similar to that of Apple Silicon. Unsurprisingly, AI experiences are a key focus for Windows going into 2024.

"With an 8-core Rockchip RK3588S SoC, the Orange Pi 5 is leaps and bounds faster than the aging Raspberry Pi 4," writes Phoronix: With up to 32GB of RAM, the Orange Pi 5 is also capable of serving for a more diverse user-base and even has enough potential for assembling a budget Arm Linux developer desktop. I've been testing out the Orange Pi 5 the past few weeks and it's quite fast and nice for its low price point.

The Orange Pi 5 single board computer was announced last year and went up for pre-ordering at the end of 2022.... When it comes to the software support, among the officially available options for the Orange Pi 5 are Orange Pi OS, Ubuntu, Debian, Android, and Armbian. Other ARM Linux distributions will surely see varying levels of support while even the readily available ISO selection offered by Orange Pi is off to a great start....

Granted, the Orange Pi developer community isn't as large as that of the Raspberry Pi community or the current range of accessories and documentation, but for those more concerned about features and performance, the Orange Pi 5 is extremely interesting.
The article includes Orange Pi 5 specs:

• A 26-pin header
• HDMI 2.1, Gigabit LAN, M.2 PCIe 2.0, and USB3 connectivity
• A Mali G510 MP4 graphics processor, "which has open-source driver hope via the Panfrost driver stack."
• Four different versions with 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB of RAM using LPDDR4 or LPDDR4X. "The Orange Pi 4GB retails for ~$88, the Orange Pi 5 8GB version retails for $108, and the Orange Pi 5 16GB version retails for $138, while as of writing the 32GB version wasn't in stock."

In 169 performance benchmarks (compared to Raspberry Pi 4 boards), "this single board computer came out to delivering 2.85x the performance of the Raspberry Pi 400 overall." And through all this the average SoC temperature was 71 degrees with a peak of 85 degrees — without any extra heatsink or cooling.

"9to5Linux.com reports that the GNOME 44 desktop environment is officially released and gives a detailed look at the major new features and improvements," writes Slashdot reader prisoninmate. From the report: Code-named "Kuala Lumpur" in recognition of the work done by the organizers of GNOME.Asia Summit 2022 conference, GNOME 44 introduces a GTK4 port of the Epihaphy (GNOME Web) web browser, a file chooser grid view for apps that use the standard GTK file chooser, as well as support for adding a WireGuard VPN directly from the Network panel. GNOME 44 continues to improve the Quick Settings feature introduced in GNOME 43 by implementing a submenu to the Bluetooth button to more easily and quickly connect or disconnect peripherals, adding descriptions to buttons to easily see their status, and implementing a new feature called Background Apps via a new background monitoring service in XDG portals 1.16.0." A full list of changes are available in the official release notes. The GNOME project also published a launch video on YouTube.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: One of the enduring legacies of the '90s browser wars has been an outsize attention to how Microsoft handles default app settings in Windows, especially browser settings. The company plans to make it more straightforward to change your app defaults in future versions of Windows 11, according to a new blog post that outlines a "principled approach to app pinning and app defaults in Windows."

The company's principled approach is a combination of broad, vague platitudes ("we will ensure people who use Windows are in control of changes to their pins and their defaults") and new developer features. A future version of Windows 11 will offer a consistent "deep link URI" for apps so they can send users to the right place in the Settings app for changing app defaults. Microsoft will also add a pop-up notification that should be used when newly installed apps want to pin themselves to your Taskbar, rather than either pinning themselves by default or getting lost somewhere in your Start menu.

These new features will be added to Windows "in the coming months," starting in the Dev channel Windows Insider Preview builds. Though Microsoft frames these changes as a way to make changing default apps easier and more consistent, they also serve as a gentle rebuke to developers who handle things differently.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Phoronix: A pull request of early AMDGPU kernel graphics driver changes was submitted for DRM-Next on Friday as some of the early feature work accumulating for the Linux 6.4 kernel cycle.

Among the AMDGPU kernel driver changes this round are a number of fixes affecting items such as the UMC RAS, DCN 3.2, FreeSync, SR-IOV, various IP blocks, USB4, and more. On the feature side, mentioned subtly in the change-log are a few power-related additions... These additions are largely focused on Van Gogh APUs, which is notably for the Valve Steam Deck and benefiting its graphics moving forward.

First up, this kernel pull request introduces a new sysfs interface for adjusting/setting thermal throttling. This is wired up for Van Gogh and allows reading/updating the thermal limit temperature in millidegrees Celsius. This "APU thermal cap" interface is just wired up for Van Gogh and seems to be Steam Deck driven feature work so that SteamOS will be better able to manage the thermal handling of the APU graphics....

These power features will be exposed via sysfs while Steam OS will wrap around them intelligently and possibly some new UI settings knobs for those wanting more control over their Steam Deck's thermal/performance.