GNU C Library 2.44 Released: the /etc/tunables.conf File and New Optimizations

The GNU project has released GNU C Library (“glibc”) version 2.44 — the latest feature release of one of the most important libraries in modern Linux systems and a number of other platforms.

Configuration via /etc/tunables.conf

The headline addition is the /etc/tunables.conf file, intended to hold the library's system-wide parameters (tunables). It is a more durable alternative to the already existing GLIBC_TUNABLES= environment variable: the settings no longer have to be specified anew on every launch. The file lists one parameter per line, and various filters and additional options are supported.

Faster Math

glibc 2.44 introduces an implementation of the cosh function using FMA (fused multiply-add), which delivers a performance gain of about 35%. In addition, further optimized and correctly rounded math functions were imported from the CORE-MATH project.

Architecture Support

Special attention was paid to the LoongArch architecture: new optimizations were added for its processors, and support for the 32-bit LoongArch32 appeared as well. A number of functions were also better optimized for both AArch64 and RISC-V.

A detailed list of changes is available in the release announcement on the project's mailing list. glibc 2.44 is expected to make its way into upcoming distributions, including Ubuntu 26.10 and Fedora 45.

Source: Phoronix