Linux Kernel News Archives

Quietly merged into this week's Linux 6.12-rc4 kernel was a patch that removes a number of kernel maintainers from being noted in the official MAINTAINERS file that recognizes all of the driver and subsystem maintainers.

Over the past week Linux creator Linus Torvalds has been active on a Linux kernel mailing list thread around avoiding barrier_nospec() in copy_from_user() due to being "overkill and painfully slow." The conversation evolved into low-level discussions over CPU behavior and how to best handle, differing behavior/requirements with new Intel CPUs supporting Linear Address Masking (LAM), and the overall headaches these days around CPU security mitigations.

Linux 6.12-rc4 is out today as the half-way point to releasing the Linux 6.12 stable kernel around this time of the month in November.

Patches posted this week by Oracle's Lorenzo Stoakes are the latest attempt at lightweight guard pages for the Linux kernel.

Years in the making has been the idea of Proxy Execution for the Linux kernel as a means of implementing priority inheritance by leveraging information from a task's scheduler context and its execution context. While the Proxy Execution patches themselves aren't yet queued for merging upstream, some prep patches look like they'll make it for the upcoming Linux 6.13 merge window.

The IO_uring asynchronous I/O API for Linux is quite novel and has proven performance benefits. With time IO_uring has been adapted to other areas of the kernel like networking and now with a proposal raised by an Arm graphics driver engineer, it could potentially be adapted for use by Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) kernel graphics drivers.

DRM_Log is an effort that continues to be worked on by Jocelyn Falempe at Red Hat as a new boot logger for printing the kernel messages on the screen.

For those making use of Restartable Sequences (RSEQ) on Linux systems, there is an enticing performance optimization on the way.

Yesterday when announcing the Linux 6.12-rc2 kernel, Linus Torvalds asked that the kernel maintainers do a better job moving forward with their commit messages.

Building off last Sunday's inaugural release candidate of Linux 6.12, Linus Torvalds tagged the Linux 6.12-rc2 kernel a few minutes ago.

Google engineers have been working on support for the Linux kernel to leverage AutoFDO feedback directed optimizations and Propeller optimizations when compiling the Linux kernel with LLVM/Clang. In turn this can help Linux systems see 2~10% better performance thanks to the more optimized kernel.

The newly-merged sched_ext allows for the Linux kernel scheduler to be made more extensible by allowing BPF programs to be loaded to affect the kernel's scheduling behavior. There's now a similar take on CPU frequency scaling: cpufreq_ext. There's a "request for comments" patch series on cpufreq_ext for making extensible CPU frequency scaling algorithm adaptations with BPF.

As expected the Linux 6.12-rc1 kernel is out today in marking the end of the very exciting two-week Linux 6.12 merge window that saw many high profile features land.

Merged as part of the memory management "MM" changes for the Linux 6.12 kernel is a kernel stack usage histogram to help developers in better optimizing the kernel stack sizes and minimizing memory waste.

Linux 6.11 introduced the getrandom() in the vDSO support for faster yet secure user-space random number generation needs. Initially that was focused on Linux x86_64 while for Linux 6.12 is ported to five more architectures.

In between Linus Torvalds' busy week being in Vienna for the Linux Kernel Maintainer Summit and related Linux Foundation events as well as managing the Linux 6.12 merge window with landing new features like sched_ext and real-time PREEMPT_RT, he also managed to finish up some of his own code for this next kernel version. Being merged today is his own code working on a new user access fast validation path using address masking.

The perf tooling changes were merged today for the in-development Linux 6.12 kernel. Notable on the perf tools side is supporting some features found in newer Intel processors.

The kernel patches collected by Andrew Morton were upstreamed today for the Linux 6.12 kernel. Among those changes are pulling in the updated XZ Embedded code.

Linux 6.12 is shaping up to be a heck of a kernel update! Following real-time "PREEMPT_RT" going mainline after twenty years and many other kernel features merged this week, Linus Torvalds just pulled in the much anticipated sched_ext code!

Linux 6.12 yesterday merged the real-time "PREEMPT_RT" patches that had been in development for two decades. Today another big hitting feature was merged for Linux 6.12 that's been in development nearly as long.

The HID subsystem updates have been merged for the in-development Linux 6.12 kernel. Notable this time around are some new feature additions for the popular Wacom drawing tablet support.

After many years in the making, it finally was merged overnight... The real-time "PREEMPT_RT" kernel support was merged a few hours ago into Linux Git for this year's Linux 6.12 kernel!

The Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) kernel graphics/display driver updates have been submitted and already merged for the in-development Linux 6.12 kernel.

The scheduler updates have been submitted for the Linux 6.12 kernel and come with several notable enhancements.

A patch was sent out on Sunday for adding new Linux kernel configuration options for tuning the kernel build to different x86_64 micro-architecture feature levels. The intent is on generating kernel builds that are faster for use on modern Intel and AMD systems. However, this patch is likely to not be accepted in the mainline kernel and has already been criticized upstream Linux kernel developers.

The printk changes to finish the NBCON consoles work has been merged for Linux 6.12! This is the last remaining blocker on real-time "PREEMPT_RT" support from being upstreamed. We're now tantalizing close to seeing the real-time kernel support merged after many years of being out-of-tree patches.

The file structure is one of the most widely-used data structures by Linux kernel drivers. The file struct represents an open file and thus obviously very important and ubiquitous throughout the kernel. With the Linux 6.12 kernel the file struct has been adjusted so it's smaller than before and in turn could help with performance for file-heavy workloads.

As expected the Linux 6.11 kernel has been promoted to stable and in time for appearing in the likes of Ubuntu 24.10, Fedora 41, and other autumn Linux distribution releases.

It's expected to be the Linux 6.11 release day! We are just hours away from hopefully seeing Linux 6.11 stable christened as the kernel set to power the likes of Ubuntu 24.10 and Fedora 41. Here's a reminder of some of the most interesting new features and changes to look forward to with Linux 6.11.

Ahead of the Linux 6.12 kernel merge window opening on Monday, the printk updates were submitted in advance given the Linux Kernel Maintainer Summit also taking place next week in Vienna. Notable with the printk updates is finishing up the NBCON console work that is notable as the last major blocker before real-time (PREEMPT_RT) support can be finally mainlined.

With Linux 6.11 expected for release on Sunday that in turn will mark the start of the two-week merge window for Linux 6.12. The Linux 6.12 cycle will get underway and work towards its stable release in mid to late November. Ahead of the Linux 6.12 merge window here is a look at some of the material anticipated for merging during this next cycle.

With this past weekend's release of Linux 6.11-rc7, the kernel changes for the week were larger than prior RCs and Torvalds was a bit hesitant on releasing v6.11 this coming Sunday due to the upcoming that takes place next week in Vienna, Austria. But after a bit of time and feedback from other kernel developers, Torvalds is now more inclined to release Linux 6.11 this coming Sunday rather than dragging it out for an extra week.

Excitement is building that the real-time kernel "PREEMPT_RT" support might finally be ready for the mainline kernel as soon as the upcoming Linux 6.12 merge window. It will be interesting to see if that long-awaited day finally comes this month but recently noted patches have now been queued into tip/tip.git's "sched/rt" branch ahead of the Linux 6.12 merge window.

Following recent international travels, Linus Torvalds is back to his usual late Sunday Linux kernel release regiment. Linux 6.11-rc7 was released a few minutes ago as Linux 6.11 approaches the finish line.

Back in 2022 were a set of patches that allowed compiling the ARM64 Linux kernel from Apple macOS hosts. The intent was for developers just wanting to do some build/smoke testing from under an Apple Silicon device running macOS to see at least any kernel changes are successfully compiling on macOS with its LLVM/Clang-based toolchain. An updated form of those patches were posted today for review.

We're very close to the finish line for the mainline Linux kernel being able to enable real-time "PREEMPT_RT" kernel support.

Linux 6.11 merged getrandom() in the vDSO Support for very fast yet secure user-space random number generation needs. That work was initially focused on x86_64 but beginning with Linux 6.12 and following on this getrandom() vDSO implementation will see expanded CPU architecture support.

When it comes to the Rust programming language support within the Linux kernel one of the limitations is that the CPU architecture support isn't as widespread. Currently Rust for Linux supports x86_64, AArch64 (ARM64) little-endian, LoongArch, and RISC-V. While those cover the main targets, POWER is notably missing and many other niche CPU architectures supported by the Linux kernel especially for aging platforms. Patches posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list would extend the Rust support to MIPS.

Posted today as a "request for comments" by longtime Linux developer Josh Poimboeuf of Red Hat is klp-build. The klp-build proposal is a new means of building livepatch modules for live-patching the Linux kernel to address bugs and security issues with the running kernel image.

Like with last week's Linux 6.11-rc5 release, Linux 6.11-rc6 is out a half-day early due to Linus Torvalds' ongoing foreign travels. Linux 6.11-rc6 brings many more fixes to this kernel that will debut as stable in mid-September,

Longtime Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem maintainer David Airlie of Red Hat has written an interesting blog post providing an analogy to types of developers compared to road builders and hotels.

Submitted today via DRM-Misc-Next to DRM-Next for staging ahead of the Linux 6.12 merge window in mid-September is optional support for displaying a QR code within the DRM Panic handler infrastructure when a Linux kernel panic occurs.

One of the several Rust for Linux kernel maintainers has decided to step away from the project. The move is being driven at least in part due to having to deal with increased "nontechnical nonsense" raised around Rust programming language use within the Linux kernel.

The Linux 6.11-rc5 kernel is already out as stable today, roughly a half-day ahead of time due to travels by Linus Torvalds.

Google engineer Qais Yousef has posted a set of 16 patches for the "Schedutil" scheduler utilization code within the Linux kernel to better manage system response time. Schedutil is often used by default on many Linux distributions and with these patches a popular web browser benchmark can be as much as 30% faster with these kernel patches.

The fourth weekly release candidate of Linux 6.11 is now available for testing.

While Linus Torvalds was hoping to merge the sched_ext extensible scheduler for the Linux v6.11 kernel cycle, that didn't end up happening after some technical issues were raised on the kernel mailing list. Since then though the kernel developers have been collaborating and given the latest sched_ext patches with "for-next" and "for-6.12" markings, it's looking like the extensible scheduler will be attempted again for the Linux 6.12 merge window.

Sent out today was the latest round of DRM-Misc-Next patches to DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 6.12 merge window opening up in mid-September. For those using ARM single board computers with a Rockchip SoC and have been struggling for 4K support over HDMI, the Rockchip updates in Linux 6.12 should excite you.

While Linus Torvalds called for including the "sched_ext" extensible scheduler in Linux 6.11, he ultimately decided not to merge it for Linux 6.11 after some technical issues were raised on the Linux kernel mailing list.

The past few months have seen patches for updating the XZ (de)compression code within the Linux kernel that's been a lengthy process in part due to the XZ backdoor situation earlier this year and the reputable XZ developers in turn being busy cleaning up that mess. In any event it appears that the updated XZ code for the Linux kernel is now on track for mainlining come Linux 6.12.