Intel Alder Lake Thunderbolt/USB4 Support For Linux 5.14

Written by Michael Larabel in Intel on 11 June 2021 at 04:21 PM EDT. 6 Comments
INTEL
Intel's Linux engineers continue squaring away the next-generation Alder Lake hybrid processor support. In addition to continued graphics driver work and other platform device IDs being added for the upcoming Linux 5.14 kernel, it looks like ADL's Thunderbolt/USB4 support will be merged too.

Queued today into thunderbolt.git's "next" tree is support for Thunderbolt on Intel Alder Lake.

The actual patch isn't all that exciting as it confirms Alder Lake has the same integrated Thunderbolt/USB4 controller as used already by Intel's Tiger Lake platform. So given the same controller, just some new device IDs are needed for Alder Lake.

This hasn't yet queued into char-misc's next area where Thunderbolt/USB4 work feeds into, but there still are a few weeks for that to happen before the Linux 5.14 cycle kicks off and so this fairly mundane change providing the all important USB4/Thunderbolt connectivity should make it for this next kernel version.

With Alder Lake processors not expected to hit retail until later in the calendar year, Linux 5.14~5.15 will be the freshest kernel in time for the autumn Linux distribution releases for running on Intel's much anticipated hybrid processors.
Related News
About The Author
Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

Popular News This Week