"core/entry" Is Exciting For Linux 5.11 With Two Big Changes

While a "core/entry" pull request may not seem that exciting, this time around for the Linux 5.11 kernel there are two prominent additions.

The two big additions with the core/entry pull request submitted on Monday for Linux 5.11 are:

- TIF_NOTIFY_SIGNAL that replaces the existing and inefficient signal delivery mode of task work. What makes this notable is delivering a huge performance boost to IO_uring, the modern I/O interface for the Linux kernel that has been seeing much praise and adoption. The speed-up with IO_uring on Linux 5.11 is quite commendable along with the other improvements led by Jens Axboe.

- Syscall User Dispatch as important for Wine with some modern Windows games/applications bypassing the Windows API and making system calls directly. With Syscall User Dispatch there is a means of efficiently intercepting those system calls from Windows software under Wine without a big performance hit and still allowing Wine itself to properly make system calls to the Linux kernel. The recent trend of Windows software bypassing the WinAPI in favor of the direct system calls appears to be done in the name of Digital Rights Management. So once Wine/Proton is updated to make use of Syscall User Dispatch on Linux 5.11, this is another important step forward for better handling modern Windows software.

There are also other core/entry improvements with the full list being found at the kernel mailing list.