Coming a little over two months after Debian 12.8 and powered the Linux 6.1 LTS series, Debian 12.9 is the eighth point release of Debian Bookworm. Yes, eighth, because Debian 12.3 was never released due to an issue in the EXT4 file system leading to data corruption so it doesn’t count.
The HiFive Premier P550 is a RISC-V single-board computer powered by the ESWIN EIC7700X SoC with a SiFive Quad-Core P550 64-bit RISC-V processor running at 1.4 GHz and an integrated Imagination AXM-8-256 GPU supporting hardware accelerated video encoding up to 8K@25fps, hardware accelerated video decoding up to 8K@50fps, and hardware accelerated AI NPU with ~20 TOPS.
Calibre 7.24 introduces several new features like the ability to create rules to transform e-book series names, which you can experiment with in the Bulk metadata editor and Preferences > Metadata download.
COSMIC Alpha 5 introduces an early version of COSMIC Media Player, which is now the default media player in Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS. System76 says that COSMIC Media Player uses Vulkan for video rendering and Video Acceleration API (VA–API) for video decoding.
Coming two and a half years after Flatpak 1.14, the Flatpak 1.16 release introduces USB device listing, support for KDE search completion, support for compiling Flatpak using Meson instead of Autotools, and support for creating a private Wayland socket with the “security context” extension to allow the compositor to identify connections from sandboxed apps as belonging to the sandbox.
KDE Plasma 6.3 promises new features like the ability to clone a panel, the ability to set keyboard shortcuts to move windows between Custom Tiling tile zones based on directionality, support for remembering the active virtual desktop per activity, revamped Graphics Tablet page in System Settings, and the option to prefer screen color accuracy in KWin.
KDE Frameworks 6.10 continues the monthly KDE Frameworks releases with new features like support for KRunner and KRunner-powered search fields to convert between “rack units” and other units of length, and a new Breeze open-link icon with the typical “arrow pointing out of the corner of a square” appearance.
KDE Gear 24.12.1 is here almost a month after the release of KDE Gear 24.12 to fix a couple of regressions in the Dolphin file manager, fix a crash in the Kleopatra certificate manager that occurred when the output directory for decrypting doesn’t exist, and fix building of the KRDC remote desktop client on Haiku systems.
Tails 6.11 is mostly here to address several critical security vulnerabilities that have been discovered and disclosed by a group of security researchers from Radically Open Security, a non-profit computer security consultancy company.
Raspberry Pi 5 was initially launched at the end of October 2023 in 4GB and 8GB RAM variants, but the people have been asking for a 16GB RAM model and now the Raspberry Pi makers have delivered it thanks to the optimized D0 stepping of the Broadcom BCM2712 application processor in Raspberry Pi 5.
As 2025 begins, Pine64 has provided a community update for January. This month’s updates include progress on the PineVox, ongoing developments for the PineNote, and the release of InfiniTime 1.15.
Virtium, in collaboration with Embedded Artists, has introduced the DEEPX iMX8M Mini AI Kit, integrating the DEEPX DX-M1 AI Booster with the NXP iMX8M Mini processor and a carrier board. The kit is designed for evaluating and deploying Edge AI technologies across various applications.
The I-Pi SMARC Amston Lake is a prototyping kit built on Intel’s Amston Lake architecture, designed to accelerate embedded system development. Key features include dual 2.5GbE LAN ports with Time-Sensitive Networking support and CAN interfaces for industrial applications.
Palit Microsystems has introduced Pandora, a compact AI computer designed for high-performance edge AI applications. Powered by the NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX Super module, Pandora is available in 8GB and 16GB configurations, providing 117 TOPS and 157 TOPS, respectively, for demanding computational tasks.
The GAR-A750E features 28 Xe-Cores, a graphics turbo frequency of 2400MHz, and 448 Intel XMX Engines. It includes Intel Deep Link Technology, enabling features such as Hyper Compute, Hyper Encode, and Stream Assist to enhance processing efficiency and workflow optimization. With a memory size of 16GB GDDR6 and a bandwidth of 512 GB/s over a 256-bit interface, the card is designed for high-performance computing tasks. It also supports a graphics high frequency of 2050MHz, further boosting computational capabilities.
NVIDIA recently introduced Project DIGITS, a personal AI supercomputer powered by the GB10 Superchip. Built on the Grace Blackwell architecture, it delivers high-performance computing for prototyping, fine-tuning, and running large AI models on a desktop.
Pilet is an upcoming open-source portable mini-computer powered by Raspberry Pi 5, offering both versatility and portability. Initially named Consolo, it will be available in two models: a 5-inch and a 7-inch, to suit different needs.
The 64-bit RISC-V CPU core, X100, achieves single-core performance exceeding 9 points per GHz on the SPECINT2006 benchmark at 2.5 GHz. Fabricated using a 12nm process, the X100 core incorporates the RVA23 Profile and features full virtualization, advanced interrupt handling, vector encryption and decryption, and a 64-core interconnect. The design also includes support for the Vector 1.0 extension and RAS (Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability) features, making it compatible with a range of server applications.
