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After a long journey getting AMD graphics cards working on the Raspberry Pi 5, we finally have a stable patch for the amdgpu Linux kernel driver, and it works on AMD RX 400, 500, 6000, and (current-generation) 7000-series GPUs.

With that, we also have stable Vulkan graphics and compute API support.

When I wrote about getting a Radeon Pro W7700 running on the Pi, I also mentioned AMD is not planning on supporting Arm with their ROCm GPU acceleration framework. At least not anytime soon.

Luckily, the Vulkan SDK can be used in its place, and in some cases even outperforms ROCm—especially on consumer cards where ROCm isn't even supported on x86!

After years of work among a bunch of people in the Pi community (special callout to Coreforge!), we finally have multiple generations of AMD graphics cards working on the Raspberry Pi 5.

We recently got Polaris-era GPUs working (like the RX460), but in the past month we've gotten 6000 and 7000-series GPUs up and running. And many parts of the driver work at full performance—well, as much as can be had on the Raspberry Pi's single PCIe Gen 3 lane (8 GT/sec)!

I've been testing tons of modern AAA games, like Doom Eternal and Crysis Remastered, and can get 10-15 fps at 4K with Ray Tracing on, or 15-20 fps at 4K. Dropping down to 1080p is not enough to overcome the Pi's CPU bottleneck—only at resolutions under 720p does the Pi's CPU and the single PCIe lane not seem to get in the way quite as much.

Recently Joshua Riek posted he's dropping off from GitHub. If you haven't heard of him, he's one of the few reasons working with Linux on Rockchip SBCs is so much easier today than it was just a few years ago.

His Ubuntu Rockchip distribution is built for Ubuntu 22 and 24, and they've been maybe the most popular and stable way to run Ubuntu on Rockchip devices.

So popular, in fact, that manufacturers who use Rockchip, like Turing Pi, build their own official images on top of Joshua's.

Now, if you're reminded of XKCD #2347, yeah, I am too.

After a decade, Raspberry Pi finally upgraded their official Touch Display from 480p to 720p, while keeping the price and overall aesthetic the same.

I've had early access to the Touch Display 2, and have been testing it in a variety of scenarios. Generally, Linux touchscreen support isn't wonderful. And Pi OS, being a fairly customized UI focused on simple use cases, is not quite to a usable state if you go touchscreen-only, considering I had trouble getting the onscreen keyboard to work in Chromium half the time, and it would overlay things I was typing even in fully-supported apps like Terminal.

Two years ago, Linus Sebastian released a general purpose ratcheting screwdriver tailored towards PC building and IT needs. I reviewed the LTT Screwdriver, and found it to be a good tool that did improve a couple things where it counted: the ratchet mechanism was useful for a broad range of lighter tasks, and the in-handle bit storage was a creative improvement over the patented MegaPro Automotive design the LTT Screwdriver was based on.

The price of the LTT Screwdriver was about $15-20 more than I think it's worth, but it's still a good enough driver you can justify paying extra. I bought three LTT Screwdrivers and have one on each of my workbenches at home and at the studio!

Despite what it looks like, this isn't a hot-rod Apple Watch. This is an IP KVM. What does that mean? It's basically a remote control rocket pack for any computer, from a giant tower PC, to a little mini PC you might run in your homelab.

It's called JetKVM, and the team behind it sent me two to test out.

BIG SCARY DISCLAIMER: The JetKVM is currently on Kickstarter. If you decide to back it, and they don't deliver, that's... actually pretty common. I did back their Kickstarter, and I think they'll deliver, but there are no guarantees.

BuildJet did not pay for this post, and I am not sharing in any profit, or even using an affiliate link. I just saw this tiny KVM come across my feed, thought it looked amazing, and asked if I could test it out.

Update - October 17: Today Qualcomm cancelled all remaining orders, and will no longer support the Dev Kit.

I have mixed feelings publishing this post: many developers who are actively trying to port their Windows software to Arm are still awaiting shipment of their own Snapdragon Dev Kits, and I seem to be one of the first few people to receive one.

Everyone I've been in contact with also ordered the Dev Kit on July 16, but we've all been waiting for it to ship—for months.

UPDATE 9/23: The CEO of Elecrow responded. I've posted a follow-up blog post with my reaction to the response and some other thoughts on AI voice cloning.

Listen to this clip:

I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty familiar. I mean I would like you to subscribe to my YouTube channel. But that's the Jeff Geerling channel, not Elecrow, where the clip above is from. I never said the words that are in that video.

This is the Sipeed NanoKVM. You stick it on your computer, plug in HDMI, USB, and the power button, and you get full remote control over the network—even if your computer locks up.

How did Sipeed make it so small, and so cheap? The 'full' kit above is about $50, while the cheapest competitors running PiKVM are closer to $200 and up!

This blog post is a lightly-edited transcript of the following video on my YouTube channel:

A few months ago, our AM radio hot dog experiment went mildly viral. That was a result of me asking my Dad 'what would happen if you ground a hot dog to one of your AM radio towers?' He didn't know, so one night on the way to my son's volleyball practice, we tested it. And it was awesome.

There's a video and some pictures in my hot dog radio blog post from back in March.