With the Linux 6.14 stable kernel likely debuting on Sunday, the Linux 6.15 merge window will then open for kicking off the next development cycle. There’s a lot of exciting changes and new features building up ahead of the Linux 6.15 merge window.
Based on the monitoring of the many “-next” branches for different kernel subsystems and monitoring of the various Linux mailing lists, below is a look at many of the changes likely to be submitted for the Linux 6.15 merge window… There’s still the possibility some features could be backed out at the last minute or Linus Torvalds or other senior kernel developers taking issue with any of the code and leading to their rejection the next cycle, but as it stands right now, below is a look at many of the anticipated features for Linux 6.15.
Of course, stay tuned during the two-week Linux 6.15 merge window to find out about these features that land, any other interesting code to make it into this next Linux kernel release, etc. In any event it’s safe to say Linux 6.15 will be another exciting kernel cycle. Some of what’s been queuing ahead of the Linux 6.15 merge window includes:
– Intel wrapping up their post Family 6 CPU handling in preparing for future Intel CPU models in the Family 18 and Family 19 series. A lot of Linux kernel code restructuring has been going on the past number of months to prepare for future Intel CPU models.
– Intel Killer E5000 Ethernet support.
– Intel Xe3 Direct Rect support for that feature of next-gen Intel graphics.
– Intel SVM and EU Stall Sampling for their Xe driver.
– The Intel Xe graphics driver has also been working on PXP HWDRM, a “survivability mode”, and GPU and VRAM temperature reporting.
– Intel graphics driver support for tuning the GuC SLPC power profile.
– Intel preparations for eUSB2V2.
– Intel Timed I/O looks like it will finally be upstreamed after being in development for years.
– More improvements to the DRM Panic “Screen of Death” functionality.
– Better Intel handling for hybrid CPUs where some security mitigations may only affect the P or E cores but not both sets of cores on hybrid processor systems.
– Standardizing among DRM drivers for a way to notify user-space of hung GPUs.
– An Intel graphics driver optimization for Pixelflut.
– AMD Radeon RX 9070 series fan speed reporting with the AMDGPU kernel driver.
– AMD preparing for new GPU hardware support with the Linux 6.15 cycle.
– Preparing for a new “high precision” mode with upcoming AMD Instinct MI350X accelerators.
– AMD INVLPGB usage by the Linux kernel has the possibility of helping with performance in some workloads on Zen 3 and newer hardware.
– FineIBT-BHI looks to be ready for greater kernel defenses.
– ASUS PRIME X670E WiFi sensor monitoring support.
– The very early Rust code for the NOVA open-source NVIDIA driver but it’s just a basic start and nothing usable for end-users on Linux 6.15.
– Dropping support for more than 4GB of RAM on 32-bit x86 kernel builds as part of other x86 32-bit kernel code restructuring.
– A Zstd co-maintainer and hopefully getting the in-kernel Zstandard compression code updated against the v1.5.7 state.
– Apple Touch Bar Display Drivers for enabling the Apple Touch Bar under Linux.
– Apple Silicon updates for the M1 / M2 along with iPad, iPhone, and iPod hardware.
– Arm applying KPTI mitigations to some newer processors if not running up-to-date firmware in order to address a recent Arm security vulnerability.
– ARM64 SMT run-time controls for those rare AArch64 processors supporting Simultaneous Multi-Threading.
– Support for the Arioha RISC-V network processor found within some Airoha SoCs for wired/wireless networking.
– MCTP over USB support.
– IO_uring zero-copy receive support for network drivers.
– Mediatek MT8365 support within the Mediatek DRM driver.
– A Huawei Matebook E Go laptop driver for supporting various features under Linux.
– Support for the XP-Pen Artist Pro 19 drawing tablet 19″ model.
– A fix for Sony PlayStation 5 controllers.
– Removing the SystemV file-system.
– The Z3fold and Zbud allocators are likely to be removed.
