Intel Icelake Thunderbolt Support Queued Ahead Of Linux 5.4

The Intel Icelake Linux support has largely been squared away for months but one lingering important feature for many is the Thunderbolt support and that's now set to be introduced with the upcoming Linux 5.4 version.

With Icelake, the Thunderbolt controller is now implemented on the processor itself (sans the Thunderbolt power circuitry) and this required some rework of the Linux kernel Thunderbolt driver code. It took a while through a few rounds of code revisions and review but that Icelake Thunderbolt support is now ready for Linux 5.4.

As of this week, the Icelake patches are queued as part of the Thunderbolt tree's "next" branch of material destined for the Linux 5.4 merge window.

So it looks like with Linux 5.4+, it should be smooth sailing for Icelake CPU support from the Gen 11 graphics through Thunderbolt connectivity. But if Thunderbolt isn't important to you, existing Linux 5.2~5.3 kernels should be in good shape as well. That's good news with Icelake notebooks/convertibles finally preparing to ship in volume.