[$] Device-initiated I/O
Peer-to-peer DMA (P2PDMA) has been part of the kernel since
the 4.20 release in 2018; it provides a framework that allows devices to
transfer data between themselves directly, without using system RAM for the
transfer. At the 2025 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF
Summit (LSFMM+BPF), Stephen Bates led a combined storage, filesystems, and
memory-management session on device-initiated I/O, which is perhaps what P2PDMA
is evolving toward. Two years ago, he led a session on P2PDMA at the summit;
this year's session was a brief update on P2PDMA with a look at where it may be
heading.
Strategy 2028 update (Fedora Community Blog)
Outgoing Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller has posted an
update on Fedora's high-level plan through 2028: [Fedora] Council members
identified potential Initiatives that we believe are important to work on next.
We came up with a list of thirteen — which is way more than we can handle at
once. We previously set a limit of four Initiatives at a time. We decided to
keep to that rule, and are planning to launch four initiatives in the next
months The initiatives are: making Fedora releases block on accessibility
issues, experimenting with a "GitOps" workflow for packaging, migrating from
Pagure to Forgejo, and "making sure Fedora Linux is ready for people who want to
work on machine learning and AI development".
[$] Two sessions on faster networking
Cong Wang and Daniel Borkmann each led session at the 2025
Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit about their
respective plans to speed up networking in the Linux kernel. Both sessions
described ways to remove unnecessary operations in the networking stack, but
they focused on different areas. Wang spoke about using BPF to speed up socket
operations, while Borkmann spoke about eliminating the overhead of networking
operations on virtual machines.
[$] The importance of free software to science
Free software plays a critical role in science, both in
research and in disseminating it. Aspects of software freedom are directly
relevant to simulation, analysis, document preparation and preservation,
security, reproducibility, and usability. Free software brings practical and
specific advantages, beyond just its ideological roots, to science, while
proprietary software comes with equally specific risks. As a practicing
scientist, I would like to help others—scientists or not—see the benefits from
free software in science.
Eight stable kernels released
Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 6.15.1,
6.14.10, 6.12.32, 6.6.93, 6.1.141, 5.15.185, 5.10.238, and 5.4.294 stable
kernels. As usual, each contains a set of important fixes.