MIDI 2.0 Driver Support Coming With Linux 6.5

Last month Linux's sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai published a set of Linux driver patches for MIDI 2.0 support for the USB Audio and Raw MIDI drivers. That roughly six thousand lines of new code for the MIDI 2.0 driver coverage is now expected to be mainlined with the upcoming Linux 6.5 cycle.

With the MIDI 2.0 support having been worked on by Takashi himself, it was a quick review process and shortly thereafter these patches have already been queued up into his sound.git for-next branch ahead of the Linux 6.5 merge window opening up around the end of the month.

MIDI 2.0 is a major overhaul to the original MIDI protocol that is widely-used by musical devices.MIDI 2.0 allows for higher resolution, better articulation, the Universal MIDI Packet (UMP) for packaging up multiple MIDI messages for easier transport, less jitter, and various other new features and improvements.

This documentation commit that is part of the patch series provides more detailed technical information on the MIDI 2.0 support for the Linux kernel.

All the MIDI 2.0 kernel patches around the raw MIDI driver and USB audio driver code is now set to premiere in Linux 6.5 when it releases later this summer.