Phoronix reports that Btrfs, the file system for Linux, will be introducing three new features in version 6.7. These features include a RAID stripe tree, simple quota accounting, and temporary file-system ID (FSID) support. The FSID support is particularly notable as it was a feature requested by Valve for their Steam Deck. The Btrfs feature work was carried out by Igalia on behalf of Valve.

The Btrfs pull request for Linux 6.7 provides more details on these features:

• RAID stripe tree: This new tree is used for logical file extent mapping, especially in zoned mode to implement RAID0 and RAID1 profiles. It can also be used in non-zoned mode. Support for RAID56 is currently being developed. Enabling this feature requires configuring it at the time of creating the file system.
• Simple quota accounting (squota): This feature provides a simplified mode of qgroup that accounts for all space on the initial extent owners (subvolumes). It makes creating and deleting snapshots more efficient, particularly for container use cases. Enabling this feature is backward incompatible but can be done on an existing file system.
• Temporary filesystem FSID (temp_fsid): The FSID is a unique identifier for a filesystem and is hard-coded in the structures, which prevents mounting the same FSID on different devices. With this feature, a new temporary FSID can be generated on mount, allowing for root partition A/B testing or for use with VM root images.

The article also mentions performance improvements in Btrfs for Linux 6.7. One improvement is the reduction of reservations for checksum deletions, resulting in a 12% decrease in deletion time for files with many extents. Additionally, work has been done to make extent state merges more efficient during insertions, reducing the runtime of critical functions by 5%.

It is worth noting that Btrfs in Linux 6.7 removes its integrity check functionality and includes various other low-level code improvements.

Source: Phoronix.

The Linux 6.6 release has just been announced by Linus Torvalds on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. This release comes about two months after the release of Linux 6.5, and it brings several notable changes and updates to the kernel.

One of the highlights of Linux 6.6 is the addition of Intel’s shadow stack hardware support. This feature helps prevent exploits by maintaining a secondary (shadow) stack that cannot be directly modified. The processor pushes the return address to both the normal stack and the shadow stack, and upon return, it compares the two copies. If they differ, the processor raises a control protection fault, which can prevent stack modification exploits. It’s important to note that this implementation only supports shadow stack on 64-bit kernels and offers support for 32-bit via IA32 emulation only for userspace.

Another significant change in Linux 6.6 is the introduction of the EEVDF task scheduler. This scheduler replaces the CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) that was merged in Linux 2.6.23. The EEVDF scheduler is designed to ensure that processes that are not getting the attention they deserve are automatically picked the next time, while processes that have been given more attention than necessary are “punished.” This algorithmic approach improves the latency of tasks that would be left behind by the CFS scheduler.

Additionally, Linux 6.6 brings faster asynchronous Direct I/O using io_uring, resulting in up to a 37% improvement in throughput/latency for low queue depth IO.

In terms of Arm architecture changes, Linux 6.6 introduces various updates and additions for Allwinner, Rockchip, Amlogic, Samsung, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and other Arm platforms. These changes include support for new boards, improvements to clock drivers, additions to device trees, and various driver updates.

The RISC-V architecture also sees some updates in Linux 6.6, including support for new device tree interfaces, userspace access to performance counters, more instructions in kprobes, crash kernels allocated above 4GiB, support for KCFI, and more. The MIPS architecture receives some cleanups and fixes in this release.

Overall, the Linux 6.6 release brings important updates and improvements to the kernel, enhancing security, task scheduling, and I/O performance. It also expands support for various architectures, including Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS. Linux enthusiasts and developers will find these updates valuable for their servers, Linux-based home labs, and DevOps environments.

Source: CNX Software – Embedded Systems News.

BookStack has released version 23.10 of its software, introducing several new features and improvements. The update includes a new “My Account” area, which provides users with a centralized location to manage their account settings and preferences. Additionally, the release adds support for the Uzbek language, thanks to the contribution from the user @mrmuminov.

Other notable changes include the addition of basic Progressive Web App (PWA) support, making it easier for users to access BookStack from their mobile devices. The update also includes new header bar partials for easier customization, as well as a “View Tags” button on non-default homepage views.

The page editor interface has been updated with a new design, providing a more intuitive and user-friendly experience. The app’s caching behavior has also been improved to avoid expiry scenarios, ensuring a smoother performance.

Several bug fixes have been implemented in this release, addressing issues such as an awkward sidebar scroll behavior at mid-level screen sizes, a buggy dark/light mode button, and the incorrect clearing of the tag input field when pressing the enter key.

BookStack v23.10 also includes various updates to improve the codebase and optimize the software’s performance, such as updating the HTTP calling, language handling, and icon handling. The release also enables new translations for Albanian, Finnish, and Norwegian Nynorsk languages on Crowdin.

Users should be aware that this update includes changes to the URLs, paths, and interfaces for user-self management. Documentation and user guidance may need to be updated accordingly.

For more information about the release, including a video overview and update instructions, please refer to the provided links.

Source: BookStack

Radxa has introduced the Radxa Zero 3W single-board computer (SBC), which features a 1.6 GHz Rockchip RK3566 processor and up to 8GB of RAM. The board is designed in the compact Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W form factor, making it one of the most powerful Arm Linux SBCs in this size.

The Radxa Zero 3W comes with various features, including an optional eMMC flash with up to 64GB capacity, a microSD card slot, a micro HDMI port, two USB Type-C ports, WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 wireless connectivity, a MIPI CSI camera connector, and a 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header.

Here are the specifications of the Radxa Zero 3W:

• SoC: Rockchip RK3566 with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor clocked at 1.6 GHz, Arm Mali G52-2EE GPU, 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator, and 4Kp60 video decoding capabilities
• System Memory: 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4
• Storage: Optional 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB eMMC 5.1 flash, and a microSD card slot
• Video Output: Micro HDMI port up to 1080p60
• Camera: MIPI CSI connector compatible with Raspberry Pi Camera V1.3 and Raspberry Pi Camera V2
• Wireless: WiFi 4 (802.11 b/g/n) and Bluetooth 5.0
• USB: 1x USB 3.0 Type-C host port and 1x USB 2.0 Type-C OTG port
• Expansion: 40-pin GPIO header with multiple interfaces
• Power Supply: 5V/1A (minimum) via USB-C OTG port
• Dimensions: 65 x 30mm

Radxa provides Debian and Ubuntu OS images, as well as a hardware access/control library for Linux. To get started, users will need a 5V power supply, a microSD card, and necessary peripherals like an HDMI monitor or TV, USB keyboard and mouse, and potentially a USB to serial debug board and a MIPI CSI camera.

Despite having a similar form factor to the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, the Radxa Zero 3W has some connector differences, such as micro HDMI instead of mini HDMI, and a different placement of the MIPI CSI connector and microSD card slot.

Performance-wise, the Radxa Zero 3W with the Rockchip RK3566 processor has been found to be significantly faster than the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W in benchmarks. The RK3566 processor has been in the market for several years, and benchmark results are available.

The Radxa Zero 3W is listed on AllNet China, starting at $15 for the model with 1GB RAM and no eMMC flash or GPIO headers. The price goes up to $66 for the variant with 8GB RAM, 64GB eMMC flash, and female GPIO headers soldered to the board. However, all variants are currently sold out, and it is unclear when there will be stock available.

In addition to the Radxa Zero 3W, Radxa is also working on a wider Zero 2 Pro board with a 2.2 GHz Amlogic A311D processor, which will offer even more performance and require a proper cooling solution with a heatsink and a small fan.

Source: CNX Software – Embedded Systems News.

Longhorn has released version v1.4.4, a distributed block storage system for Kubernetes. This release includes various enhancements, improvements, bug fixes, and stability and resilience updates. Some of the notable improvements include the addition of disk status Prometheus metrics, improved log levels for resource update failures, and support for both NFS hard and soft with custom timeo and retrans options for RWX volumes. Bugs related to volume synchronization, attaching/detaching loops, and volume mounting have also been addressed. This release is aimed at providing a more stable and reliable storage solution for Kubernetes environments. For more information, you can visit the Longhorn v1.4.4 release page.

Patches have been posted by SiFive for the Linux kernel that provide cryptographic implementations of various functions within the kernel using the RISC-V processor ISA’s vector crypto extensions. These patches aim to accelerate various Linux kernel crypto operations by utilizing the vector instructions with the RISC-V Cryptography Extensions. The vector instructions for these extensions can be found in the riscv-crypto repository.

In total, twelve patches have been posted this week that improve the performance of several cryptographic functions. These include the acceleration of AES cipher, AES with CBC/CTR/ECB/XTS block modes, ChaCha20 stream cipher, GHASH for GCM, SHA-224/256 and SHA-384/512 hash, SM3 hash, and SM4 cipher.

For those interested in this work and the details of how it speeds up kernel crypto operations with the RISC-V Crypto Vector instructions, the patch series can be found here.

Source: Phoronix.