Linux Action News 205

SUSE's new era kicks off this week, CentOS users get some relief, and how Docker managed to piss off their users.

Plus RISC-V gets a surprising benefactor, and the kernel feature we never thought would get merged that was just approved by Linus.

• SUSE Rancher 2.6 Launches After the Acquisition of Rancher Labs — The number of Kubernetes distributions SUSE Rancher 2.6 can support has been raised by two, with the addition of Microsoft Azure’s AKS and Google Cloud Platform’s GKE. Rancher 2.6 also will add support for SLE’s Base Container Images.
• SUSE Updates Rancher Platform for Kubernetes — Version 2.6 of SUSE Rancher adds a revamped user interface with improved logic-based workflows along with providing integration with SUSE Linux Enterprise Base Container Images (SLE BCI), a repository for container images for SUSE Linux.
• SUSE Rancher 2.6 Brings Enterprise Customers Improved Interoperability Across Multi-Cloud Cluster Environments
• Docker Desktop no longer free for large companies: New ‘Business’ subscription is here — Docker will restrict use of the free version of its Docker Desktop utility to individuals or small businesses, and has introduced a new more expensive subscription, as it searches for a sustainable business model.
• Docker is Updating and Extending Our Product Subscriptions - Docker Blog — The new Docker Personal subscription replaces the Docker Free subscription. With its focus on open source communities, individual developers, education, and small businesses – which together account for more than half of Docker users – Docker Personal is free for these communities.
• MongoDB tops $30 billion market cap in banner week for open source — MongoDB said second-quarter revenue climbed 44% to $199 million, while its Atlas cloud database grew 83% and now makes up more than half of total revenue.
• [Video] MongoDB CEO — "We now have 29,000 customers."
• CloudLinux offers CentOS 8 users a support lifeline — CloudLinux has announced it will provide updates and support for CentOS 8 through December 31, 2025.
• Linux on the Framework Laptop — We recommend using 5.12 or newer for a kernel to get solid platform, WiFi, and bluetooth functionality, along with libfprint 1.92.0 or newer for the fingerprint reader. All of the other hardware like speakers, microphones, headphones, webcam, hardware privacy switches, keyboard media keys, ambient light sensor, and all of the Expansion Cards should work completely.
• Apple Possibly Exploring Open-Source Alternative to Arm Architecture — According to a newly posted job alert, spotted by Tom's Hardware, Apple is looking for an engineer that specializes in RISC-V, an open-source architecture instruction set that allows device makers to build their own chips without having to pay a license or royalty.
• Apple M1 IOMMU Driver Merged For Linux 5.15, Intel Scalable Mode By Default — This IOMMU on the Apple M1 has been a bit challenging for the developers to deal with as the hardware is fixed to using a 16K pagesize while there is ongoing work to improve the infrastructure so it will play happy when using a kernel with 4K CPU pagesize.
• [Twitter] The M1 IOMMU driver (required for PCIe,WiFi,USB,display and almost everything else) was just merged by Linus — "Thanks again to Robin Murphy and @alyssarzg for reviewing and testing and ofc to @joergroedel for accepting it!"
• Merge tag 'iommu-updates-v5.15'
• KSMBD As An In-Kernel SMB3 File Server Merged For Linux 5.15 — KSMBD, developed by Samsung, is focused on delivering speedy SMB3 file serving performance and also supporting features more implemented in kernel-space, like RDMA support for SMB Direct. KSMBD doesn't aim to be as comprehensive as well known Samba for CIFS/SMB support in user-space but is just focused on the performance and kernel feature angle.
• KSMBD Kernel Docs