Linux 6.11 Features Many Exciting Updates For AMD Hardware & More

It's expected to be the Linux 6.11 release day! We are just hours away from hopefully seeing Linux 6.11 stable christened as the kernel set to power the likes of Ubuntu 24.10 and Fedora 41. Here's a reminder of some of the most interesting new features and changes to look forward to with Linux 6.11.

Linus Torvalds is expected to release Linux 6.11 on-time today and ahead of the busy Linux Kernel Maintainer Summit week in Vienna, Austria. Some weeks ago was the Linux 6.11 feature overview while below is a look at some of the most exciting changes to refresh your memory. Particularly those with AMD CPUs and GPUs there is a number of new features you'll find with this new kernel.

Some of the AMD related highlights for Linux 6.11 include:

- AMD RDNA4 graphics seem to have a baseline of the Linux 6.11 kernel. From all public indications thus far, Linux 6.11 looks like it will be the initial baseline for graphics driver support. This is good news with AMD next-gen graphics not yet being launched... But it's stabilized enough that it looks to be in good shape for Linux 6.11. Granted, more performance optimizations and new features may still arrive in Linux 6.12+.

- AMD Core Performance Boost handling is added to the AMD P-State driver along with Fast CPPC support for select Zen 4 and newer laptops.

- Polishing up of the RDNA3.5 graphics support for AMD Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" laptops.

- ASUS EC Sensors driver support for the AMD-based ProArt X670E CREATOR WIFI motherboard.

- The Framework Laptops with AMD SoCs using the ChromeOS EC can now enjoy fan speed and temperature and charge control support from the Chrome OS EC driver.

- Support for AMD SEV-SNP guests is finally in place on the mainline Linux kernel at long last.

- Much faster AES-GCM crypto performance for modern Intel and AMD CPUs thanks to AVX-512/AVX10 and VAES optimized implementations.

Meanwhile some of the other exciting non-AMD updates in the Linux 6.11 kernel include:

- Continued work on Intel Xe2 graphics for Lunar Lake laptops and upcoming Battlemage graphics cards. But it's not until Linux 6.12 where this support is deemed stable and ready to enable out-of-the-box.

- The DRM Panic infrastructure for providing a "Blue Screen of Death" of sorts when the kernel experiences a panic on supported graphics drivers is now able to display a monochrome logo as part of the panic message (screen of death).

- Initial support for block atomic writes for NVMe and SCSI storage.

- Initial DeviceTree support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 based ASUS Vivobook S15 and Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x laptops. But various feature limitations remain for this kernel driver.

- Support for easily building a Pacman kernel package of the upstream kernel for use on Arch Linux installations.

See a more exhaustive list of the new Linux 6.11 features via the feature list published last month.