Linux 5.10 Adds Intel Alder Lake DPTF Support - Still A Thorn For Open-Source

A late notable change for the Linux 5.10 kernel that was merged today as a "fix" is DPTF support for Intel Alder Lake hardware.

Intel's Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework (DPTF) has been common to Intel ultrabooks for a few years as their power/thermal solution for managing fan noise, overheating, and other performance-related problems. But for Linux users DPTF has been a mess and making full use of Intel DPTF on Linux has required binary bits -- including a binary-only utility for parsing DPTF tables from the system firmware.

DPTF has generally been a mess for Linux unless taking extra steps and not minding the binary portions. With Intel Alder Lake it looks like this solution is continuing.

Merged as a fix for Linux 5.10 is the DPTF Alder Lake support. That support amounts to adding some new IDs.

It's looking like with Linux 5.10~5.11, Intel should have much of the Alder Lake hardware enablement support in place.