Linux 6.10 Features Expected From The NTSYNC Driver To Performance Optimizations

Barring any last minute reservations by Linus Torvalds, Linux 6.9 stable should release later today. In turn the Linux 6.10 merge window will then open for the next two weeks and already some early pull requests have been submitted for this next kernel version. Here is a look at some of what to expect with the Linux 6.10 kernel.

Based on early pull requests and the monitoring of the dozens of "-next" branches over the past number of weeks, below is a look at some of the features expected to land for Linux 6.10 based on my monitoring. Of course, there could be last minute changes or any code objections raised by Linus Torvalds or bugs coming to light, so for now treat the below list as some of the tentative features coming with Linux 6.10.

Features to look forward to in Linux 6.10 include:

- The NTSYNC driver should be merged for emulating Windows NT synchronization primitives for speeding up Windows games running on Wine / Steam Play (Proton). (Update:) But it looks like so far only the basic NTSYNC driver patches are in char-misc-next and currently not the entire complete series.

- Much faster AES-XTS for disk/file encryption thanks to AVX-512 optimizations and more.

- Intel's NPU driver will have optional hardware scheduler support as well as profiling support. Intel's Neural Processing Unit is initially found with new Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" laptops.

- Preparations for a kernel panic screen as sort of like a Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSoD).

- Dropping support for very old DEC Alpha platforms from the 1990s.

- Support for building ARM64 flat image trees.

- The Panthor DRM driver is being merged for supporting newer Arm Mali graphics.

- A "high priority" option for DM-Crypt.

- TPM bus encryption and integrity protection to precent active/passive interposer attacks that have been recently demonstrated for both Windows and Linux. This work is important for putting more faith into Trusted Platform Modules.

- Clear Page Tracking for the AMDGPU driver and DRM buddy allocator.

- A rework for Intel CPU model handling as Intel prepares for future CPUs past the "Famnily 6" era.

- Intel Adaptive Sync SDP support and new Arc A580E / A750E graphics support.

- An Intel low-latency hint for aggressively boosting the GT frequency for GPU compute.

- Continuing to mature the Intel Xe kernel graphics driver.

- FreeSync fixes, more work on the next-gen AMD Radeon GPU support, and other AMD graphics improvements.

- Removing sysctl sentinel bloat.

- Kernel mode FPU support for RISC-V that is needed for display support on recent AMD graphics with DC.

- Live migration for the Intel QAT driver.

- The Intel HFI driver will quit wasting CPU cycles when not being actively used.

- Correcting the CCD/CCX topology for some AMD CPUs.

- Faster send zero-copy support for IO_uring.

- Accounting for NUMA node when allocating per-CPU cpumasks.

- Making turbostat more useful to non-root users.

- Reduced memory consumption in extreme scenarios and other SLUB allocator updates.

- Sound support for ASUS ROG 2024 laptops and the Lenovo ThinkPad 13X.

- The Acer Aspire One ARM laptop has "almost full" support at long last.

- NZXT Kraken 2023 AIO CPU cooler monitoring support.

- Assorted AMD P-State driver improvements.

Stay tuned for more Linux 6.10 kernel coverage during the two week merge window followed by the start of Linux 6.10 kernel benchmarking on Phoronix.