We are now one week through the two week long Linux 5.7 kernel merge window where new/improved functionality is introduced. Here is a look at the changes so far for Linux 5.7.

Ongoing work around Linux's exec() code should make it less deadlock prone in future kernel versions.

The Linux 5.7 kernel will bring random performance improvements as in /dev/random.

The perf subsystem continues to be quite lively with improvements and for Linux 5.7 is seeing a number of low-level improvements.

The work led by VMware on allowing the Direct Rendering Manager's TTM memory management code support huge page tables has been added to Linux 5.7.

An important infrastructure change with the Linux 5.7 kernel now allows the ability to create a process in a different cgroup from the parent process.

Greg Kroah-Hartman on Friday sent in his "char/misc" updates for the Linux 5.7 kernel several days later than normal.

Basically a half-week after Linux 5.6 shipped as stable, we are up to the second point release of it.

The Linux 5.7 crypto subsystem updates include new drivers.

The Linux 5.7 Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) updates have been submitted as the kernel graphics driver changes for this next kernel feature release. As usual, there is a lot of work especially on the Intel and AMD Radeon side while nothing was queued for the open-source NVIDIA (Nouveau) driver.

The previously reported work on split lock detection due to its big performance hit is now queued up for Linux 5.7.

Greg Kroah-Hartman began sending in his pull requests this morning for the areas of the Linux kernel he oversees. With the staging area changes for Linux 5.7 there is some nice spring cleaning.

Linus Torvalds just announced the release of the Linux 5.6 stable kernel a few minutes ago. This also means the Linux 5.7 merge window is now open for business.

The Linux 5.6 stable kernel could be released as soon as tomorrow if Linus Torvalds is comfortable with its current state to avoid having an eighth weekly release candidate. Whether Linux 5.6 ends up being released tomorrow or next weekend, this kernel is bringing many exciting changes.

With the Linux 5.7 cycle kicking off in April with its merge window opening upon the release of Linux 5.6, here is a look at some of the changes and new features that have been on our radar for this next version of the Linux kernel.

File this under the "I can't believe it took this long" or "why wasn't this done before" section... Thanks to SUSE, there are finally patches pending to allow easily setting sysctl parameters from the kernel command line using a generic infrastructure.

Longtime open-source Linux graphics developer Thomas Hellström of VMware has sent out a patch series aiming for Linux 5.7 or 5.8 to introduce support for huge and giant page-table entries for the TTM memory management code and TTM-enabled graphics drivers.

More improvements were queued in recent days to sched/core of CPU scheduler improvements on the table for the forthcoming Linux 5.7 kernel cycle.

Linus Torvalds commented that while Linux 5.6-rc7 may be going through strange times, the Linux 5.6 kernel development is looking normal.

Linux 5.7 will support the MHI protocol developed by Qualcomm as part of the new kernel bus being introduced.

The GrSecurity patches to the Linux kernel have long focused on security enhancements but this year they are said to be taking on a larger focus of performance optimizations.

Going back to at least late 2017 have been proposals for Zstd-compressing the Linux kernel images for the Facebook-developed Zstandard compression algorithm. In 2020 perhaps we will finally see the support mainlined.

Linus Torvalds just released Linux 5.6-rc6 and the code metrics are looking good for this stage of the kernel cycle.

A rather simple improvement to the Linux CFS scheduler's load balancing code appears to have measurable benefits with helping to more quickly spread the task utilization across the system.

Linus Torvalds has unveiled the fifth weekly release candidate to the forthcoming Linux 5.6 kernel.

Veteran Linux engineer Nitin Gupta of NVIDIA has unveiled his latest patches on the work he got started on last year: proactive memory compaction for Linux motivated by the latency issues brought on by he current on-demand compaction when an application requests a lot of hugepages.

Intel's lead developer of the ANV Vulkan Linux driver started a discussion last week about adding an API to DMA-BUF for importing/exporting of sync files as part of allowing for explicit synchronization capabilities in better handling of modern APIs from user-space.

The fourth weekly release candidate of Linux 5.6 is now available for testing.

A few days back we reported on a security vulnerability within Intel's KVM virtualization code for the Linux kernel. That vulnerability stems from unfinished kernel code and was fixed for Linux 5.6 Git and is now being back-ported to the 4.4 / 4.9 / 4.14 / 5.5 supported kernels.

Besides Clear Linux delivering often leading x86_64 Linux performance at run-time, when it comes to boot performance it has also been at the forefront -- in some configurations, can boot in 300 ms. Intel has invested significantly in ensuring Clear Linux boots as fast as possible for when running in the cloud or on containers in order to respond to increased demand as quickly as possible as well as for use-cases like Clear Linux within automobiles where they need to get automobile cameras active within two seconds of power on. One of their many kernel patches could be on its way to the mainline kernel.