USB4 Support Lands In The Linux 5.6 Kernel

Ahead of USB4 devices expected to begin appearing later this year, the Linux 5.6 kernel is wired up with initial USB4 support.

We were expecting USB4 in Linux 5.6 and indeed it has happened. It was just last September that the USB4 specification was published but allowing this Linux kernel enablement to come rather quickly is that it's based on Thunderbolt 3. This USB4 enablement for the Linux kernel is based in large part on the existing Thunderbolt Linux code.

Intel's big open-source team was able to get the initial USB4 code ready for Linux 5.6. This USB4 support also shifts the Kconfig options to the USB4 naming scheme from Thunderbolt.

Besides the USB4 support in Linux 5.6, other USB/Thunderbolt work includes support for separate DisplayPort alternate mode devices within the Type-C code, the ability to handle USB wake events from USB devices in S2 mode (USB Wake-On), many NVIDIA Tegra USB updates, support for the MediaTek MUSB controller, support for USB 3.x tunnels within Thunderbolt, and various other USB support improvements.

The complete list of USB changes for Linux 5.6 via this pull request which has since been merged to mainline.