Intel's Lynx Point Chipset Is Getting Ready On Linux

Support for Intel's Lynx Point chipset has been landing in recent days within various patches spread across many different projects, but more is on the way for Intel Haswell's landing.

As exclusively mentioned yesterday, Intel will soon be releasing open-source Haswell graphics driver code as they prepare to provide Linux hardware enablement support for this next-generation Intel CPU micro-architecture that is still one year away with Ivy Bridge even not having been launched yet.

Lynx Point is the chipset that will be launched in conjunction with the Intel Haswell processors in 2013, just as Sandy Bridge Launched with Cougar Point and Ivy Bridge will have Panther Point as its new chipset option. In recent days, the Linux patches for supporting Intel's Lynx Point chipset have been arriving on public lists.

Among the Intel Lynx Point patches having been presented on public lists thus far has been for its HD audio controller, SMBus controller, IDE and AHCI SATA support, TCO Watchdog, and various other areas for the Lynx Point PCH.

Most of these Linux patches for Lynx Point were authored by Seth Heasley at Intel. For all of the kernel-related bits, they should be merged by the Linux 3.4 kernel. Hitting Linux 3.4 will ensure that the initial Intel Haswell / Lynx Point support is entering Ubuntu 12.10, Fedora 18, and other H2'2012 distributions. The Haswell support will surely be bettered and more stabilized with the Linux 3.5 kernel (just as it took Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge to mature for a few kernel cycles), which hopefully will be the kernel to make the cut for Ubuntu 12.10 and others.

Besides enabling the general chipset functionality of Lynx Point and the forthcoming graphics support patches for Haswell's competitive graphics processor, initial GCC and LLVM compiler support for Haswell is already out in the public spotlight too. The compiler work for Haswell adds in support for AVX2 (Advanced Vector Extensions 2), FMA, and other new CPU instructions that will be introduced in 2013 when Haswell actually is shipping.