🏡 VirtualBox 7.2 Beta Adds Windows 11 Arm Support, Source Code Now Hosted on GitHub

Oracle engineers have released the first public beta of VirtualBox 7.2 virtualization software for Windows, Linux, macOS, and Solaris systems.

Notable features of Oracle VirtualBox 7.2 Beta 1 include: support for running Windows 11 Arm on Arm hosts, along with support for the Virtual Machine Additions package for Windows 11 Arm systems. The unified Windows installer package for VirtualBox now includes Arm virtualization support.

VirtualBox 7.2 Beta 1 also brings graphical interface optimizations, improvements for Arm virtual machines, and other updates.

For more details on the changes in VirtualBox 7.2 Beta 1, please refer to the announcement on VirtualBox.org. The source code for VirtualBox is now officially available on GitHub, and all open-source VirtualBox code can be accessed through the VirtualBox/virtualbox repository on GitHub.

🔔 Linux 6.16 GPU Driver Changes: NVIDIA Blackwell Support, Asahi User-Space API, Intel Xe Fan Speed Control

The Linux 6.16 kernel has merged a significant number of Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) kernel graphics/display driver changes today. Notably, preliminary support for NVIDIA Blackwell and Hopper GPUs based on open-source drivers has been added to the mainline kernel, while AMD Radeon/Instinct and Intel graphics drivers have also received important updates, along with improvements to other minor drivers.

Key highlights of the Linux 6.16 DRM driver updates include:

• Adding Asahi user-space API header files to the kernel tree for Apple Silicon. It should be noted that this is only the user-space header file and does not include the Rust-based Asahi DRM driver implementation… the actual driver will be released later, but the inclusion of this header file in the mainline Linux kernel source tree simplifies the build process for Mesa code.
• To support the upcoming Asahi Rust driver, NOVA driver, and other Rust-based DRM drivers, several Rust abstraction layer components have been added to the kernel.
• The Nouveau driver has preliminary support for NVIDIA Blackwell and Hopper GPUs. This feature requires the use of NVIDIA GSP firmware binary files, and support for Blackwell on the Mesa side is still in development but is expected to be merged soon. This serves as a transitional solution for the Nouveau driver before the NOVA driver (the future Rust open-source NVIDIA kernel driver) is ready.
• The NOVA driver in Linux 6.16 has further improved the NOVA-Core code, added an initial version of the NOVA-DRM framework, and is continuously paving the way for the eventual replacement of the Nouveau driver.
• Intel driver code continues to advance preparations for the Panther Lake platform’s Xe3 integrated graphics.
• Intel driver refactoring of variable refresh rate (VRR) code.
• Modern Intel Xe drivers now support preliminary shared virtual memory (SVM) multi-device collaboration.
• Adding more Intel Battlemage PCI IDs for future graphics cards.
• Intel Xe drivers will eventually report graphics card fan speeds.
• Support for Intel Link Off Between Frames (LOBF) technology.
• GC9.5 updates and other preparations for the next generation of AMD Instinct accelerators.
• AMDGPU user queue support, SR-IOV updates, and other improvements to the AMDGPU driver.
• Adding DMA-BUF support for the AMDXDNA accelerator driver for Ryzen AI NPU.
• Allowing VKMS drivers to connect more displays.
• Adding panel rotation feature fixes for the ZOTAC Gaming Zone handheld.
• The MSM DRM driver for Qualcomm Adreno GPUs adds adaptive clock distribution for the Snapdragon X1 series X1-85.
• The Imagination DRM driver now supports the TI AM68 GPU.
• The VirtIO DRM driver supports DRM Panic handlers.
• The Rockchip DRM driver adds support for the RK3588 SoC.

The complete list of changes can be viewed in this Pull Request, which details all DRM display/graphics driver modifications merged into Linux 6.16 today.

🦊 Linux 6.16 Will Achieve Faster User Mode Exit: Performance Improvement of 2-11%

While changes in the “core/entry” of the Linux kernel merge window are usually not worth highlighting, there is one optimization applicable to all CPU architectures in the Linux 6.16 development cycle that deserves attention.

A Pull Request for core/entry submitted earlier this week has been merged into the mainline. For RISC-V and LoongArch architectures, this patch migrates some code from assembly to C language implementation, significantly improving the execution speed of ret_from_fork() on the RISC-V platform. More importantly, these changes in Linux 6.16 also include a general optimization.

In Linux 6.16, the syscall_exit_to_user_mode() function has been implemented inline across all architectures, avoiding function call overhead and allowing the compiler to implement better optimization strategies. This function is responsible for preparing the exit from system calls to user mode.

Charlie Jenkins from Rivos, the author of this optimization patch, noted in the submission message:

“Validated through the byte-unixbench system call benchmark (calling getpid) and QEMU: RISC-V architecture measured a performance improvement of 7.09246%, x86 architecture improved by 2.98843%, LoongArch architecture improved by 6.07954%, and s390 architecture improved by 11.1328%.”

“Intel’s automated testing robot also reported a 1.9% improvement in the stress-ng.seek.ops_per_sec metric detected by the kernel testing tools.”

Such performance improvements are considerable for a small patch that better leverages compiler optimization potential through code inlining.

This patch has been merged into the mainline and will officially appear in Linux 6.16.

🙄 Arch Linux Installer Adds Post-Installation Configuration Option for Btrfs Snapshots

Archinstall 3.0.7 has been released today as the latest feature update for this text-based Arch Linux installer, allowing for quick and easy deployment of new Arch Linux systems.

Archinstall 3.0.7 has added support for configuring Btrfs snapshots post-installation. When choosing to use the Btrfs file system, users can now configure Btrfs snapshots through a new option. In the disk configuration menu, users can select either the Snapper or Timeshift tools.

This feature fulfills a request made two years ago when users wanted the ability to configure Snapper in a Btrfs environment.

Archinstall 3.0.7 has also moved the disk encryption option to the disk configuration menu. Additionally, this updated TUI Arch Linux installer includes several bug fixes and other improvements. For more details, please refer to GitHub.