With Linux 6.17 expected for release this weekend, the Linux 6.18 merge window will in turn kick-off for its usual two week dance. Here is a look at some of the features on our radar that are expected to be merged for Linux 6.18, which is also likely to be the 2025 LTS kernel version.
In the monitoring of the different subsystem “-next” Git branches and mailing lists, below is a look at some of the material expected to be submitted for the Linux 6.18 merge window. Granted, there can be last minute changes or objections to any of the code from Linus Torvalds. But as it stands now, below is a look at some of the features expected for Linux 6.18.
– Support for next-generation eUSB2V2 web cameras. That is Embedded USB2 Version 2.0.
– XFS enabling online FSCK support by default.
– A nice exFAT performance optimization.
– The DM-PCACHE introduction as a high throughput, low latency DAX cache.
– The Rockchip NPU accelerator driver should be going mainline.
– The Nouveau driver now defaulting to use the NVIDIA GSP where supported.
– Further complications to non-GPL out-of-tree file-systems.
– The introduction of Sheaves as a per-CPU caching layer and the potential for big performance wins.
– Haptic touchpad support. with initially focused on the Elan 2703 touchpad.
– Google PSP encryption for TCP connections.
– Various Apple Silicon improvements.
– The Rust Binder driver looks ready for mainline as an alternative to the C-based Binder driver used by Android and long part of the Linux kernel.
– Tyr as the new Rust-based DRM driver for Arm Mali hardware to eventually replace the existing Panthor driver.
– Meanwhile the Panthor DRM driver is supporting more Arm Mali GPUs with Linux 6.18.
– The PowerVR DRM driver now supports RISC-V.
– The Pixpaper DRM driver is another new bit of Direct Rendering Manager code.
– The ability for Rust and C code to use the same memory model.
– Intel USBIO USB IO Expander Drivers are going mainline.
– Intel Wildcat Lake display support.
– Intel has returned to working on the Habana Labs AI accelerator driver. There is now HLDIO NVMe Direct I/O support, vmalloc-backed coherent mmap support, new passthrough APIs, and other improvements but still no Gaudi 3 support.
– A new power savings option for the Intel graphics driver.
– More Intel Xe graphics driver preparations around SR-IOV.
– Intel power slider support for Panther Lake.
– A patch for old AMD Bulldozer CPUs for those wanting to build the Linux kernel with X86_NATIVE_CPU support.
– AMD ABMC as the Assignable Bandwidth Monitoring Counters for modern AMD EPYC servers.
– Enhancements to the AMDGPU driver for GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.1 GPUs.
– Continued AMDGPU and AMDKFD driver work around checkpoint/restore.
– Various other AMDGPU improvements.
– AMD Versal NET DDR EDAC driver support.
– The AMD-Xilinx Versal TRNG driver is also set to be upstreamed.
– The AMD SBTSI temperature driver can now handle freezing CPU temperatures, literally.
– AMD Secure AVIC for better security and performance.
– Support for atomic writes with linear RAID “md-linear”.
– BPF support for signed programs and deferred task execution.
– Sony DualSense controller audio jack handling.
– Easier parsing of PCI device serial numbers.
– Microchip LAN969x SoC support.
– Linux scheduler adapted for a latency win.
– Samsung Exynos 7870 work for that nearly decade old 14nm SoC.
– Sensor monitoring for the ASUS Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE motherboard.
– FreeBSD Bhyve hypervisor detection.
– A sensor driver for GPD handhelds.
– Better support for Xiaomi Redmibook laptops.
– Qualcomm Packet Processing Engine “PPE” support.
– VESA DRM 8-bit color palette mode support.
– Early preparations for ASpeed AST2700 BMCs.
– An EDAC driver for the Arm Cortex A72.
– IO_uring uring_cmd multishot support with provided buffers.
– A new driver for the TASCAM US-144MKII USB Audio Interface.
Phew, Linux 6.18 is shaping up to be another very exciting kernel cycle. If all goes well for the Linux 6.17 release on Sunday, the Linux 6.18 merge window will then kick off and the Linux 6.18 stable kernel should be out in December. Stay tuned for our Linux 6.18 merge window coverage for more details on all the changes coming followed by the start of Linux 6.18 kernel benchmarking.
