USB 3.2, USB Type-C & SoundWire Updates Head Into Linux 4.18

Greg Kroah-Hartman has begun submitting the v4.18 pull requests for the multiple subsystems he maintains within the Linux kernel.

First up are the USB updates for Linux 4.18. With the USB updates there is continued work on bettering the Linux kernel USB Type-C support, namely around the Type-C Port Manager (TCPM) that was merged to the mainline kernel last year. Greg KH noted that the Type-C code is almost ready to leave the staging area of the Linux kernel.

Also queued as part of the Linux 4.18 kernel are some early bits for USB 3.2 support though it doesn't look like any USB 3.2 controller support is ready for Linux 4.18, this is just the infrastructure prepping around this USB specification published last year.

Greg also sent out the char/misc updates. On that front there are more updates to SoundWire, the new simple audio stream subsystem that is a MIPI specification and added back into Linux 4.16. There is now support for SoundWire stream management, port management, master/slave port programming, stream configuration APIs, and other additions.

A new driver that is part of the char/misc pull request is the IBM Virtual Management Channel Driver (VMC). The IBM VMC driver is for POWER hardware and is used as a virtual adapter with the PowerVM platform for message passing.

Greg also sent out the driver core and TTY/serial patches, but nothing too exciting on that front for Linux 4.18. He hasn't yet sent out the staging subsystem updates.