Linux 5.11-rc4 Released With NVIDIA RTX 30 Mode-Setting, Haswell GT1 Graphics Restored

Linux 5.11-rc4 was just released and it's looking like a fairly normal release at this stage of development aside from some notable additions that were merged this week.

Most prominent and representing around 20% of the work this week is the NVIDIA RTX 30 "Ampere" support that is currently limited to kernel mode-setting within the Nouveau DRM driver. It's a big addition in at least getting proper mode-setting for these very latest NVIDIA GPUs working on the mainline Linux kernel driver but without any 3D acceleration or the like for the time being. Users with any NVIDIA Ampere hardware will be best off with the feature-rich and performant proprietary driver for the foreseeable future.

Also notable with Linux 5.11-rc4 is fixing the fallout from Intel Haswell GT1 graphics being broken for the past half-year. Those low-end Intel Haswell graphics parts should be back to working now after several kernel cycles with hangs/issues at boot for those affected processors.

The rest of Linux 5.11-rc4 is the usual collection of bug fixes throughout.

The brief Linux 5.11-rc4 announcement can be read on lore.kernel.org.

Linux 5.11 stable should be out in February and introduces many new and improved features.