Last month on Phoronix there were 257 original Linux/open-source related news articles and another 20 featured Linux hardware reviews / multi-page benchmark articles. Following the recent
There was a lot of interesting happenings in July from Linux kernel AI drama, the final MPEG-4 visual patent expiring, Valve sponsoring a RADV port to Windows, various AMD product announcements, and the never-ending flow of exciting Linux kernel innovations. If you enjoy all the original Phoronix content each and every day, please consider
The most popular news during July 2026 on Phoronix included:
And the most popular reviews over the last month:
22nd birthday of Phoronix.com, this puts the overall tally at nearly 51k original news articles and more than 5,600 Linux hardware reviews. Here is a look back at what readers found most exciting during the course of July.There was a lot of interesting happenings in July from Linux kernel AI drama, the final MPEG-4 visual patent expiring, Valve sponsoring a RADV port to Windows, various AMD product announcements, and the never-ending flow of exciting Linux kernel innovations. If you enjoy all the original Phoronix content each and every day, please consider
joining Phoronix Premiumto help make continued operations possible while enjoying ad-free browsing, multi-page articles on a single page, native dark mode, and other benefits. For those that are resorting to ad-blockers, tips viaPayPalorStripeare most appreciated.The most popular news during July 2026 on Phoronix included:
The Last MPEG-4 Visual Patent Has ExpiredIf you are looking for a reason to celebrate today, the last of the MPEG-4 Part 2 patents expired today.FreeBSD 16 Retires The Last Of Its GPL Code From Its Base SystemAs of this past week in the FreeBSD source tree for FreeBSD 16, the last of the GNU GPL licensed code from the base system has been retired.Linus Torvalds Reaffirms That Linux Is Not "Anti-AI" & Not A "Social Warrior" ProjectOvernight Linux creator Linus Torvalds wrote another well crafted message that reaffirms the Linux kernel position of not being against AI and lashing back against some kernel developers that are against AI/LLM usage within the kernel project.ReactOS "Open-Source Windows" Project Now Capable Of Running Half-Life 2One month ago it was exciting to see the open-source ReactOS operating system running Valve's Half-Life game. Little to realize less than 30 days later it would also be running Half-Life 2.Rust Coreutils cp Ended Up Breaking Ubuntu Image Builds With Latest IncompatibilityWhile the Rust Coreutils offers better memory safety than GNU Coreutils due to being written in the Rust programming language, subtle incompatibilities continue to be spotted in the Rust Coreutils implementations of the different commands. The latest coming to light this week was the Rust Coreutils cp command breaking Ubuntu image builds due to differences in argument handling.Firefox 153 Available With Support For Vulkan Video Decoding, Experimental JPEG-XLMozilla has uploaded the Firefox 153.0 release binaries today for the newest monthly update to this cross-platform web browser. Making Firefox 153 exciting is that it's the newest Extended Support Release "ESR" as well as introducing Vulkan Video decode support.Pop!_OS Rolls Out Its "Frosted Glass" Desktop Style For COSMICSystem76 developers have for the past number of weeks been working on developing a "frosted glass" appearance for the COSMIC desktop environment featured on their Pop!_OS Linux distribution. For Pop!_OS users this frosted glass feature is now available and will become more widespread for other Linux distributions once the next COSMIC release is formally tagged.Valve Sponsors Work Bringing Open-Source RADV Driver To WindowsValve has been sponsoring Collabora engineers with early phase, exploratory work for trying to bring the open-source Radeon Vulkan "RADV" driver to Microsoft Windows.Linux Kernel Developers Again Discussing AI Agent Attribution - Potentially Dropping ItWhen AI/LLM agents are used in the creation of Linux kernel patches, the policy for a while now has been that it should be specified using an "Assisted-by" tag as part of the patches/commits. But Linux kernel developers this week have been discussing whether to revise that policy or to potentially eliminate it.Frame: A New X11 Server Implementation Written Entirely In x86_64 AssemblyPreviously we covered YSERVER as an X11 server written in the Rust programming language with the help of Claude Code. A Phoronix reader wrote in today to share an even more esoteric X11 server implementation that has come about and again written in large part by AI/LLM usage: Frame is an X11 server written in pure x86_64 Assembly.Proton 11.0-1 Released To Advance Valve's Steam Play For The Best Linux Experience YetProton 11.0-1 was just released as stable as the newest major version of this downstream of Wine that powers Valve's Steam Play to provide for a great Windows gaming experience across conventional Linux systems plus the popular Steam Deck and brand new Steam Machine."KVM Chainsaw" Expected To Hit Linux 7.3 For Dealing With God Data StructureA patch series that appears destined for the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window is what's dubbed the "KVM Chainsaw" as a major code clean-up in dealing with the kvm_mmu "god data structure".LibreOffice 26.8 Beta Released For Improving This Free Software Office SuiteThe Document Foundation today announced the first beta release of the LibreOffice 26.8 open-source office suite set for its stable debut in August.GNOME 51 Alpha Released With Numerous EnhancementsIn working toward the stable GNOME 51 desktop release due out in September, today marks the alpha release of GNOME 51.GNOME Lands ext-background-effect-v1 Support For Background Blur EffectAdded to the Wayland Protocols repository back in May of 2025 was the ext-background-effect-v1 protocol for background blur that had been under discussion since early 2024. The initial focus is on being able to apply a blur effect on a window's background or otherwise a specified screen region. GNOME 51 has now merged support for ext-background-effect-v1 with the latest Mutter code.AMD P-State Linux Driver Patches Can Boost 1%-Low FPS Gaming Performance By 31%A set of patches posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list implement per-core Energy Performance Preference (EPP) boosting for recently-busy CPUs. This feature is designed to have a dramatic impact for Linux gaming and helping especially with the 1% low frame-rates improving by 31.8% on the Valve Steam Deck.AMD Releases Lemonade 11.0 Local AI Server With Text-To-Speech, Other New FeaturesAhead of the AMD Advancing AI event next week, today AMD released Lemonade 11.0 as the latest feature release of their local AI server supporting AMD Ryzen CPUs, AMD Radeon GPUs, and AMD Ryzen AI NPU acceleration.ReactOS Implements First Windows NT6 System Call In Step Toward Vista CompatibilityThe ReactOS project that is striving to be the "open-source Windows" with Windows driver and software binary compatibility hit another milestone today. ReactOS to date has primarily targeted Windows NT 5.2 as the architecture from Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 but with an eye toward Windows NT 6.0 for Windows Vista and later compatibility with software. ReactOS has now landed their first NT6 system call.Fedora 45 Atomic Desktops Look To Allow For Web-Based Remote InstallationsOne of the latest change proposals filed for Fedora Linux 45 is for supporting web-based remote installations of Fedora Atomic Desktop images.Debian 13.6 Released To Ship All The Latest Security Fixes, Reverts GeoIP Database*Debian 13.6 is out today as the newest point release of Debian Trixie to ship the latest security fixes and other maintenance updates.*And the most popular reviews over the last month:
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS vs. Windows 11 vs. CachyOS Performance On A $5399 LaptopEarlier this month on Phoronix I reviewed the Razer Blade 18 RZ09-0582 as the first laptop Razer is certifying for Linux use via Canonical's hardware certification program for Linux. It offered very nice performance with the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 graphics albeit costly with a configured price of $5399 USD. That review featured benchmarks on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS but for those wondering about the performance of Ubuntu against Windows 11 on this gaming/AI developer laptop, here are comparison benchmarks plus also tossing in the rolling-release CachyOS distribution.CachyOS Outperforming Windows 11, Slight Advantage Over Ubuntu & Fedora On AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470A recent mini PC being benchmarked at Phoronix is the BOSGAME VTA-439 that employs the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 Gorgon Point SoC. With the BOSGAME mini PC having shipped with Microsoft Windows 11, here are some comparison benchmarks of the out-of-the-box Windows 11 performance up against Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Fedora Workstation 44 while also tossing the rolling-release, highly-optimized Arch Linux based CachyOS into the benchmarking mix.KDE Plasma 6.7 X11 vs. Wayland Session Gaming Performance For NVIDIA On CachyOSWith KDE Plasma 6.7 now having seen a few point releases to further polish this last version with X11 support ahead of Plasma 6.8 going Wayland-only, here are some NVIDIA Linux gaming benchmarks between the X11 and Wayland sessions on Plasma 6.7.2 using the popular Arch Linux based CachyOS.AMD Ryzen AI Halo Is An Excellent & Powerful Mini PC With Fully Open-Source SoftwareEarlier this year AMD announced the Ryzen AI Halo as their in-house mini PC offering built around their leading Ryzen AI Max+ "Strix Halo" platform. After pre-orders began last month, the Ryzen AI Halo is officially beginning to ship this week and over the past few weeks we have been testing it out at Phoronix.Framework Laptop 13 Pro: Aiming To Be One Of The Best Upgradeable Linux LaptopsBack in April, Framework Computer announced the Framework Laptop 13 Pro as a ground-up re-design of their modular/upgradeable laptop. This new Framework Laptop 13 Pro features a much larger battery (74Wh), LPCAMM2 memory support, a full CNC aluminum chassis, haptic touchpad, and a new power-optimized touch display. Paired with the very efficient Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" SoCs, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro ends up being an incredible offering from the hardware perspective.KDE Plasma 6.7 vs. GNOME Shell 50.3 vs. Xfce 4.20 On CachyOS With NVIDIA GraphicsEarlier this month I provided a look at the KDE Plasma 6.7 Wayland vs. X11 session performance for graphics/gaming on CachyOS using NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 graphics. Since then Phoronix readers -- including some premium supporters -- requested seeing some additional desktops tested with the latest CachyOS packages. So here we are now with seeing how KDE Plasma 6.7 compared to the Wayland-only GNOME Shell 50.3 desktop as well as the X11-based Xfce 4.20 desktop on CachyOS.Graviton5 Outperforming Intel Xeon Granite Rapids But Falls Short Of AMD EPYC TurinFollowing the recent GA of the AWS M9g series as the first instances powered by the new Graviton5 CPUs, I recently ran benchmarks looking at Graviton4 vs. Graviton5 CPU performance. There was very nice generational gains for the new AWS Graviton processors with the shift from Arm Neoverse-V2 to Neoverse-V3 cores and from DDR5-5600 to DDR5-8800 memory, among other improvements. For those wondering how the Graviton5 ARM server processors compare to AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon, here are some additional comparison data points from the Amazon EC2 cloud.Razer Certifying Their First Laptop For Linux: Razer Blade 18 RZ09-0582Razer is a brand synonymous with gaming and finally in 2026 they are in the process of certifying their first laptop for Ubuntu Linux. This laptop going through Ubuntu Linux certification is the Razer Blade 18 RZ09-0582 and it offers incredible performance with the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor and GeForce RTX 5090 graphics but with that also comes a very high price tag.Single vs. Dual Channel Memory Performance With The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K PlusGiven today's pricing environment around system memory, a Phoronix Premium supporter recently requested some benchmarks to quantify the performance difference from single to dual channel memory. In considering a new computer build, he is contemplating whether to go for a single stick of DDR5 memory until memory prices hopefully subside in the future. For those in a similar boat, here are some benchmarks of single versus dual channel memory on an Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus "Arrow Lake" desktop.AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D Linux PerformanceToday the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D goes on sale as the lowest-price AMD 3D V-Cache processor being marketed for gamers. This 8-core / 16-thread processor features a 4.5GHz boost clock and a total of 104MB of cache while being based on the older Zen 4 architecture and coming in at about $329 USD. Here is a look at how the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D is performing on Linux.