Linux 6.16: faster file systems, improved confidential memory, more Rust support

Post by tmtvl » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 10:38 AM UTC

05 wrote: post #49

ndriscoll wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 20 MB 3.5 minute .flac file takes ~200 ms to decode into a 35 MB .wav on my desktop, so in principle the program could spend a small fraction of a second placing the decoded audio into a small buffer and give a pointer to hardware to keep playing it while the rest of the system goes to sleep for a few minutes. Or if the hardware has direct support for the codec, it could just give it the file as-is.

Since pulseaudio defaults to software mixing, this huge buffer would just get gradually copied to the actual kernel playback buffer one 25ms chunk at a time..

Post by hetman » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 6:30 PM UTC

dralley wrote: post #16

tombert wrote: post #2

I'm still kind of surprised that Linus ended up allowing Rust into the kernel. Good, but surprising. Looking forward to this release once it hits NixOS Unstable.

Linus is pragmatic. His only hard rule is "don't break userspace", most everything else is contingent. From what I can tell, he views Rust for Linux as a social project as much as a technical one - attract new (and younger) developers into the kernel, which has become pretty "senior", force all of the "unwritten rules" to be written down, and break down some of the knowledge siloing and fiefdom behavior that has take…