In advance of the Linux 6.17 merge window expected to open soon following the Linux 6.16 release, all of the SoC updates have been submitted to Linus Torvalds for this next kernel version.
There are new Arm and RISC-V SoCs being supported with Linux 6.17 plus enabling a number of new laptops, developer boards, smartphones, and other devices. The SoC highlights of what’s been submitted ahead of the Linux 6.17 merge window includes:
– New SoC support includes the decade old Marvell PXA1908 and the CIX P1 SoC that is for small workstations. The CIX P1 SoC features 12 x Cortex-A720/A520 cores and is one of the few Armv9.2 systems currently. Also to now be supported by the mainline Linux kernel is the Axiado AX3000 with Cortex-A53 cores.
– New RISC-V SoC support with these pulls include the Andes Tech QiLai SoC and the Sophgo SG2000 that features both RISC-V and Arm cores. The RISC-V cores were already supported by Linux while now the Arm cores work too.
– Newly supported SoC variants of existing hardware include the Mediatek MT6572, Samsung Exynos 2200 that is used by the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S22, Renesas R-Car V4M-7 (R8A779H2) for automotive applications, and the Tegra264. The NVIDIA Tegra264 is a new SoC from NVIDIA but with not much public information yet and the upstream enablement very basic for now. The NVIDIA Tegra T264 is expected to be the “Thor” SoC with fourteen Arm Neoverse V3AE cores and a Blackwell GPU. The NVIDIA Tegra T264/Thor is expected to launch officially later in 2025 including with the Jetson Thor.
– There are 33 newly enabled boards/machines such as various evaluation/developer platforms, six 32-bit industrial boards for different SoCs, two ASpeed BMC-based motherboards, and some phones/tablets.
– New Samsung Snapdragon X laptop support include the ASUS Zenbook A14, including the X Elite x1e80100 and X Plus x1p42100 models.
– The new driver for the Raspberry Pi 5’s RP1 multi-function I/O chip.
More details via these merge requests for the imminent Linux 6.17 merge window.
