Linux To Start Seeing Enablement Patches For Intel "Raptor Lake"
Raptor Lake is anticipated to be the 13th Gen Core processors and successor to the recently launched Alder Lake processors. Previous leaks around Raptor Lake have pointed to the new "Raptor Cove" performance core and an improved Gracemont power efficiency core. Leaks have also suggested Raptor Lake S could top out at a 24 core / 32 thread design. The launch of Raptor Lake is expected in 2022.
With Alder Lake out the door and Intel known over the years for their generally very punctual Linux support, it should come as no surprise that Raptor Lake enablement has started. As of the currently ongoing Linux 5.16 merge window there isn't yet any Raptor Lake specific patches but posted today to the kernel mailing list is the start of the bring-up.
The first patch making it out today is just the usual one-liner adding the Raptor Lake model ID. Raptor Lake's model ID is 183 (0xB7). Or hardware enablement patches to come will in turn be depending upon that "INTEL_FAM6_RAPTOR_LAKE" define.
So it's not a particularly exciting patch but as usual the start with more expected to quickly follow if Intel's past open-source timing holds. It's also likely that Intel is going to try to get the initial Raptor Lake support into the Linux 5.17 cycle. Linux 5.17 will hopefully be the kernel of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (though Canonical may still side for Linux 5.16 in being cautious for the Long Term Support cycle...) as well as likely being what will initially ship in Fedora 36 and the like. With Raptor Lake expected for release in 2022, the Intel engineers will likely try to get at least early enablement code into those distributions. It's possible especially as it doesn't look like Raptor Lake will have too many breaking changes over Alder Lake.
Stay tuned to Phoronix as more Intel Raptor Lake Linux patches begin to appear for the kernel and related operating system components.
Update: Intel has already posted Raptor Lake S graphics support for Linux patches.
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