Linux 6.7 Set For Release With Bcachefs File-System, Intel Meteor Lake Graphics In Good Shape

The Linux 6.7 kernel is expected to be released as stable later today following the one week delay due to the end-of-year holidays. Here's a reminder about some of the best features in Linux 6.7.

Linux 6.7 is a very exciting kernel update to kick off 2024. Some of the best changes/features in Linux 6.7 include:

- The Bcachefs file-system was merged. Bcachefs is still treated as experimental but now it's mainline and continuing to evolve nicely especially after a few rounds of fixes this cycle.

- Intel Meteor Lake graphics are now considered stable and enabled by default. Prior to Linux 6.7 the "i915.force_probe=" option had to be used. As shown in my Intel Core Ultra 7 "Meteor Lake" Linux benchmarks so far, the open-source graphics support is in very good shape with Linux 6.7.

- NVIDIA GPU System Processor (GSP) firmware support within the Nouveau kernel driver. This yields better power management / performance for the GeForce RTX 20 / RTX 30 series hardware when used with the firmware blobs and the module option to enable GSP support. This GSP firmware support also allows Nouveau to support GeForce RTX 40 series acceleration for the first time.

- The ability to disable/enable x86 32-bit program support at boot time.

- Scheduler improvements and other kernel optimizations.

- Intel Itanium IA-64 support was retired.

More details on the Linux 6.7 kernel features can be found from our Linux 6.7 feature overview for a more exhaustive look at all the great changes to find with this new kernel version succeeding the Linux 6.6 LTS series. Linux 6.7 in turn is likely what will find its way into Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and other upcoming Linux distribution releases.