Linux 5.14-rc1 Released - Big GPU Drivers Update, Secret Memory Option + Core Scheduling

Following the two-week long merge window, the first release candidate to Linux 5.14 is now available with all the shiny new features to be found in this next kernel release.

Linus Torvalds commented in the 5.14-rc1 announcement, "On the whole, I don't think there are any huge surprises in here, and size-wise this seems to be a pretty regular release too. Let's hope that that translates to a nice and calm release cycle, but you never know. Last release was big, but it was all fairly calm despite that, so size isn't always the determining factor here.."

Linux 5.14 is bringing a number of Intel and AMD Radeon graphics driver improvements, memfd_secret as a new system call for creating secret memory areas, lower latency for the USB audio driver, a number of file-system driver improvements, continued enablement around Intel Alder Lake hybrid processors, Core Scheduling is now available, AMD Ryzen laptop improvements with updated SFH driver, and much more. I'll have out my usual Linux kernel feature overview list published tomorrow, but in the meantime there is always the listing from my original Linux 5.14 kernel coverage. Linux 5.14 benchmarks will also be coming up soon.

Linux 5.14 stable should be out at the very end of August or early September, which will put it just in time for likely hitting Ubuntu 21.10 as well as comfortably for other autumn distribution updates like Fedora 35.