The PALMSHELL NeXT H2 is an affordable micro server and single-board computer (SBC) powered by an AMD Ryzen Embedded R1505G processor. It offers impressive networking capabilities with two 10GbE SFP+ cages and one 2.5GbE RJ45 port. The system also supports up to 32GB of RAM and has storage options including an M.2 NVMe SSD and two SATA drives. It features wireless connectivity options such as WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and the possibility of adding a 4G LTE or 5G module. These network features make it an interesting option for various homelab uses. Theoretically, the device could support ECC memory as the Ryzen Embedded R1505G has such support, but this is not mentioned in the specifications for the NeXT H2 specifications, although it is mentioned in the specifications for the CPU. It should be noted that such support also depends on motherboard and firmware, not just on the CPU.

The system is equipped with a customized copper heatsink and a 3000 RPM PWM speed control fan for efficient cooling. It can be powered by a 12V to 19V DC power supply. The PALMSHELL NeXT H2 is designed to support multiple operating systems, including Ubuntu, Arch Linux, Fedora, Debian, OpenWrt, Windows, pfSense, and ROS.

The SBC without memory, storage, or wireless connectivity starts at $199. The barebone model with a metal enclosure is priced at $249. Two models with 8GB RAM/256GB SSD and 16GB/512GB configurations, along with the Intel AX210NGW WiFi 6E/BT 5.2 module, are available for $299 and $349, respectively. Power supply is not included with any of the options.

Source: CNX Software – Embedded Systems News.

Patches have been submitted to the Linux kernel mailing list to add support for the Milk-V Duo RISC-V development platform, reports Phoronix.

The Milk-V Duo features a CV1800B chip with two C906 processor cores. One core runs at 1GHz, while the second core runs at 700MHz. This dual RISC-V 64-bit chip is paired with 64MB of RAM. There is also an optional 10/100Mbps Ethernet via an add-on board. The board is targeted for use with Linux or RTOS. Interested individuals can learn more about this low-cost RISC-V embedded board on the milkv.io website. The patches for mainline Linux kernel support for the Milk-V Duo are currently under review on the LKML.

Source: Phoronix.

The OpenZFS project has released version 2.1.13, of the open-source implementation of the ZFS file system and volume manager. ZFS supports features like data compression, data deduplication, copy-on-write clones, snapshots, and RAID-Z. It also supports the creation of virtual devices.

The new version is compatible with Linux kernels 3.10 to 6.5 and FreeBSD releases starting from 12.2-RELEASE. The release includes various changes and fixes, including improvements for Linux compatibility and bug fixes for issues related to automounted snapshots, L2ARC write size calculation, and memory leaks. The update also includes enhancements for zed, zfs-dkms rpm, and bash completion. Overall, the release brings improved stability and compatibility for users of OpenZFS/ZFS on Linux.

ZFS is a great choice for home servers and use on DIY network attached storage units, and is the file system that TrueNAS uses. It can also run perfectly well on the Raspberry Pi.

See the full release notes here.

The openSUSE Leap Micro 5.5 Beta has been released, offering a lightweight Linux operating system designed for containers and virtualized workloads. As the community version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro, openSUSE Leap Micro focuses on reliability and caters to container and virtualization use-cases. One of the major changes in this release is improved Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) support. A release candidate for Leap Micro 5.5 will be available soon, with the official general availability (GA) release expected in early October. For more information and to download the Leap Micro 5.5 Beta, visit the openSUSE website.

Source: Phoronix.

Phoronix reports that the first part of MSG_ZEROCOPY preparations for the VirtIO-Vsock driver has been queued into net-next, with plans for introduction in the Linux 6.7 kernel. This feature aims to improve performance within virtual machines by enabling message zero-copy support for the VirtIO/Vsock code. By allowing for more zero-copy of buffers, rather than creating extra copies on transmissions, this feature can lead to significant efficiency gains. Benchmarks on the patch series have shown impressive gains, particularly for buffer sizes at 32KB and larger. This development is of particular interest for home labs and virtual machine environments, as it has the potential to enhance virtual machine performance.

Source: Phoronix.

Phoronix reports that the upcoming Linux 6.7 kernel will introduce a new feature for Intel’s QuickAssist Technology (QAT) device driver. This feature will enable more efficient use of QAT Gen4 hardware, specifically the latest-generation Intel Xeon Scalable “Sapphire Rapids” processors.

The QAT Gen4 devices, which are currently available with select Sapphire Rapids processors, support chained compression “DC” operations. With this feature, a single firmware request can perform both hashing and compressing of data in one step.

The Linux kernel driver for Intel QAT is being extended to support the DC chaining service with the latest QAT accelerators. By allowing the data to be hashed and compressed in a single request, this feature reduces overhead and latency compared to making multiple requests to the QAT hardware.

Intel QAT is a hardware-based technology developed by Intel to accelerate cryptographic and data compression workloads. It offloads and accelerates specific operations, such as encryption, decryption, and compression, from the CPU to dedicated hardware accelerators. This improves performance and efficiency while freeing up CPU resources for other tasks.

Key features and benefits of Intel QAT include cryptographic acceleration, data compression, improved performance, reduced CPU utilization, hardware security, virtualization support, and various form factors such as PCIe cards and integrated solutions.

This new feature in Linux 6.7 will be of interest to those using home servers, as it allows for more efficient use of Intel QAT Gen4 hardware. By offloading cryptographic and compression tasks to dedicated hardware accelerators, home servers can experience significant performance improvements and reduced CPU utilization. This can lead to better handling of transactions and connections, lower power consumption, and improved overall system efficiency.

Source: Phoronix.