The Linux 6.17 kernel is tracking well for its planned stable release on Sunday. Here is a look back at some of the most interesting changes to find with this next kernel version.
Linux 6.17 is another hearty release and is what’s set to power Ubuntu 25.10, Fedora 43, and other end of year 2025 Linux distribution releases. Some of the most interesting changes to find with Linux 6.17 include:
– Intel Xe3 graphics for Panther Lake are now enabled by default in advance of Intel formally launching the next-generation Panther Lake chips for laptops.
– The Linux 6.17 kernel now makes multi-core SMP support unconditionally enabled.
– Attack Vector Controls for more easily managing different groups of CPU security vulnerabilities/mitigations depending upon the class of attacks you / the Linux administrator are concerned about and such as whether you are running any (untrusted) virtual machines, etc.
– The Intel IPU7 driver was added as part of the web camera support for select Lunar Lake and Panther Lake laptops.
– Apple M1 and M2 Macs can now reboot with the mainline kernel thanks to the Apple System Management Controller (SMC) driver being upstreamed.
– A mainline driver for the Raspberry Pi 5’s RP1 I/O chip.
– Initial support for Intel Wildcat Lake graphics as well as IVPU driver support for the Wildcat Lake NPU.
– SR-IOV support for Intel Arc Pro B-Series GPUs as well as Intel preparations for multi-GPU as part of their Project Battlematrix.
– AMD SmartMux support for better handling of hybrid GPU laptops.
– EXT4 file-system scalability performance improvements.
– Lenovo Legion Gaming Drivers for better Lenovo Legon Go S gaming handheld support on Linux.
– The gconfig utility for configuring the Linux kernel builds with a GTK UI has been ported to the GTK3 toolkit.
– Various performance optimizations and other enhancements.
See the Phoronix feature overview of Linux 6.17 for a more comprehensive look at the dozens of interesting new changes to find with Linux 6.17. Linux v6.17 stable is expected to be tagged on Sunday if no last minute issues materialize and then following that will be the start of the Linux v6.18 merge window, which is also expected to become this year’s LTS kernel version.
