GNU/Linux and Development Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 26, 2025

GNU/Linux

• Kernel Space

  • Collabora ☛ What to do about differing product life cycles

    Abandoned vendor-provided BSP roadblocks can be overcome when mainline Open Source projects like the Linux kernel are integrated directly. Get your upstreamed BSPs from day one.

• Games

  • Boiling Steam ☛ TGS 2025: Day 1 Report and First Impressions

    So today was the first day of the Tokyo Games Show 2025! And what a day! It felt like a whole new show compared to the usual editions. I’m not sure what happened suddenly, but the show is bigger than ever. More booths everywhere, and a lot, and I mean A LOT of games to see and try out everywhere. I walked around the whole place during the day without taking a break and I felt I barely scratched the surface! Which is good or SAD! depending on your point of view. Let me first share of the games I have tried and my first impressions. This is not exhaustive - I have done a lot more stuff during the day, but time is of the essence so let me start by this.

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Barry Kauler ☛ Testing defective chip maker Intel SOF drivers

    I received an email from A. Franc, reporting that audio does not work on a Huawei Matebook D14 laptop. It seems that Intel's SOF drivers are needed, not HDA (the legacy drivers).

  • Open Hardware/Modding

    • CNX Software ☛ Espressif’s EchoEar ESP32-S3 voice-controlled Hey Hi (AI) chatbot runs esp-brookesia firmware

      Espressif Systems’ EchoEar is a compact ESP32-S3 Hey Hi (AI) chatbot designed for voice interaction and edge Hey Hi (AI) applications, for smart toys, voice-enabled speakers, and control systems. It features a 1.85-inch circular touch display, a dual microphone array with local wake-word detection, and support for large Hey Hi (AI) models from OpenAI, Xiaozhi AI, and Gemini. The kit is built around the ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 Wi-Fi 4 and Bluetooth 5 module, and also integrates a 3W speaker for audio interaction, and a microSD card slot for data storage. Other hardware features include a BMI270 IMU, a green LED, a USB-C port, a magnetic connector, and a battery management chip.

• Development

  • Web Browsers/Web Servers

    • Mozilla

      • Servo (Linux Foundation) ☛ The Servo Blog: This month in Servo: variable fonts, network tools, SVG, and more!

        Another month, another record number of pull requests merged! August flew by, and with it came 447 pull requests from Servo contributors.

  • Programming

    • Dirk Eddelbuettel ☛ Dirk Eddelbuettel: tint 0.1.6 on CRAN: Maintenance

      A new version 0.1.6 of the tint package

      This release addresses a small issue where in pdf mode, pandoc (3.2.1 or newer) needs a particular macros defined when static (premade) images or figure files are included. No other changes.

    • Python

      • LWN ☛ Cuni: Tracing JITs in the real world @ CPython Core Dev Sprint

        Longtime PyPy developer Antonio Cuni has a

        lengthy

        blog post that describes his talk at the recently completed

        2025

        CPython

        Core Dev Sprint, held at Arm in Cambridge, UK.