The Most Exciting Linux 3.11 Kernel Features

With the Linux 3.11 kernel due to be released in the coming weeks, here's an overview of the most exciting changes for this next major Linux kernel update.

For Phoronix readers, as has already been covered extensively, the likely most exciting end-user feature is Radeon DPM support as finally implementing dynamic power management support for the open-source AMD driver means better performance, lower operating temperatures, and lower power usage. The benchmarks have been great.

Aside from Radeon DPM, other great 3.11 features include:

- Radeon HD 8000 Sea Islands support.

- Full Intel Bay Trail (Valley View) Linux graphics support.

- H.264 and MPEG-2 video decoding support for the Nouveau driver via the VP2 PureVideo engine.

- Zswap compressed swap caching was finally merged.

- Mainlined on the file-system side was the Lustre client.

- Wine support for Windows RT applications.

- Possible power consumption/performance improvements.

- Tons of other changes.

Expect Linux 3.11 final to be out within a couple weeks time barring any last-minute major regressions.