A Look At The Features Merged So Far For The Linux 4.18 Kernel

We are about half-way through the Linux 4.18 kernel merge window, so here is a look at the most interesting work that's been merged so far for this next kernel release that should debut as stable around mid-August.

In the first week of the Linux 4.18 merge window, highlights include:

- The big platter of DRM graphics driver updates always has us most excited and it's no different with Linux 4.18 from AMDGPU improvements to Intel Icelake work to NVIDIA Volta open-source enablement.

- ARM64 patches for Spectre V4 / SSBD.

- 32-bit ARM mitigation for Spectre V1 / V2 has finally been merged.

- More work on bringing up support for the Centaur / VIA / Zhaoxin x86 CPUs.

- Stoney and Bristol Ridge AMD CPU temperature reporting is a long overdue addition.

- Never-ending Linux power management improvements.

- Continued refinements to the scheduler code.

- The Valve Steam Controller kernel driver was added to the HID subsystem along with support for the Redragon Asura keyboard.

- BPFILTER was added for eventually re-doing the packet filtering and firewall code along with other networking subsystem improvements.

- A variety of sound changes.

- Continued fixes for Year 2038 preparations.

- User name-space support for FUSE.

- Prepping for online file-system repair and other code prepping in the XFS file-system code.

- Faster deletion in the Btrfs send code.

- Speck file-system encryption support is one of the controversial changes with Speck being the NSA-developed cipher that is potentially back-doored by this US spy agency.

- The Chromebook tablet switch driver was mainlined for improving the support for some of these 2-in-1/convertible x86 Chromebooks.

- USB 3.2 and Type-C improvements.

Stay tuned for more features of Linux 4.18 as the merge window is still open for another week. In the days ahead I'll also begin with the Linux 4.18 Git kernel benchmarking.