Linux Kernel 6.5 – Introduction
For Linux 6.5, there are a lot of changes planned for the AMD and Intel hardware sides as usual, as well as parallel CPU bring-up, UEFI unaccepted memory, various hardware sensor improvements, several intriguing Linux CPU scheduler enhancements, ongoing work on open-source graphics drivers, and much more. The final two months of the Linux 6.5 cycle before its stable release later this summer will be fascinating.
Let’s briefly take a look at what’s new in Linux kernel 6.5.
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Out-of-the-box Support for AMD FreeSync Video
Support for AMD FreeSync Video mode is enabled by default in this edition, which is a cool feature that was previously released. Due to problems, it was first added to Linux Kernel 5.8 but later removed.
Screen tearing and stuttering in games and films are significantly minimized when AMD FreeSync mode is on by synchronizing the display’s refresh rate with the graphics card’s framerate.
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Virtualization and networking
To properly support industry standards like Intel Trusted Domain Extensions (TDX) and AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization Secure Nested Page (SEV-SNP) based virtual machines, UEFI Unaccepted Memory support has been successfully integrated into Linux 6.5.
The success of implementing guest snapshot support for KVM guests stands out among the many RISC-V KVM advancements for Linux 6.5. With the help of this improvement, RISC-V KVM guests may make use of functional live snapshot support for virtual machines, making it possible to manage and run VM snapshots effectively.
The Linux 6.5 kernel’s networking subsystem modifications include support for several more recent network devices as well as some improvements relating to the WiFi 7 wireless standard.
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Default P-State “Active “Mode for AMD CPUs
Modern AMD CPUs will now come pre-installed with amd-pstate as the default CPU performance scaling driver, especially those made with the Zen 2 and later architecture. Before this, CPUFreq handled the CPU scaling technique by default.
The three modes that AMD-Pstate now supports are guided autonomous, passive, and active. In this version, the “active” mode has taken the place of the guided autonomous mode that was included in the Linux Kernel 6.4.
According to several Phoronix benchmarks, amd-pstate outperforms CPUFreq in terms of performance.
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ASUS ROG Ally Sound Optimizations
The AMD Z1 and Z1 Extreme SoCs power the Windows mobile gaming computer ASUS ROG Ally, a direct rival to the very popular Steam Deck. It first became available in July of this year.
Thanks to this commitment, Linux gamers who possess an ASUS ROG Ally may anticipate the delivery of a fix for the system’s audio component.
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Initial Support for USB4 v2 & WiFi 7
WiFi 7, the next-generation wireless standard, has been in development for some time. I should mention that WiFi 7 supports the 6GHz band and has a maximum data speed of 23 Gbps!
Similarly, work on the development of the next-generation USB4 standard has begun. 80 Gbps data transfer speeds supported via USB4!
Thanks to this unification for WiFi and this pull request for WiFi 7, the Linux 6.5 kernel now offers preliminary support for both.
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Ports and drivers
MIDI 2.0, a major update to the widely used MIDI protocol for music devices, brings notable improvements such as higher resolution, improved articulation, and MIDI Packing universal (UMP) to transmit multiple MIDI messages logically. Linux Kernel 6.5 brings full MIDI 2.0 support with better compatibility and driver range.
What’s new in drivers?
The upcoming Linux kernel 6.5 is expected to include improvements to the Broadcom VC4 DRM driver, especially regarding the HDMI controller. These improvements, previously only available in the downstream Raspberry Pi core, have now been integrated upstream into the main tree. Notable features include the introduction of the Broadcast RGB attribute, which allows users to override the HDMI pixel range if the display data is incorrect. Additionally, support for the BT.601 and BT.2020 color spaces that are important for standard dynamic range Ultra HD TVs is also added.
- Storage
The NTFS3 file system driver, released in 2021 for Linux 5.15, brought significant improvements over the previous NTFS kernel driver and the FUSE NTFS-3G driver. Since its first release, the driver has undergone continuous improvements to further enhance its capabilities.
With the upcoming Linux 6.5 release, the NTFS3 driver now includes support for the volinfo and label attributes, making them accessible under sysfs for NTFS drives. Additionally, an alternate boot mode has been added to handle failed master boot attempts, as well as several optimizations implemented in the kernel driver codebase.
Major focuses on storage
The Flash-enabled file system “F2FS” has received several improvements and new features for this release. One of the main focuses of this development cycle is research into support for zoned block devices. Various fixes have been released to address issues such as fixing write pointers between f2fs and storage, implementing an asynchronous zone reset stream, and managing the number of open zones. Additionally, F2FS introduces a new mount option, “error=x”, that allows users to specify how to handle unexpected behavior detected at runtime. This feature provides flexibility in handling and responding to unforeseen problems encountered when using F2FS.
Overall, these improvements contribute to the continued optimization and reliability of Flash-enabled file systems for Linux users. In Linux kernel 6.5, EXT4 will benefit from significantly improved performance when performing direct I/O (DIO) overrides in parallel. Red Hat’s Brian Foster contributed to this optimization, which allows simultaneous overwriting of unaligned DIOs and produces notable performance gains. With this patch, his test case using FIO demonstrated a significant increase from 8724 KiB/s to 1565 MiB/s.
- Processors
Exciting news for users of high-core Intel Xeon, AMD EPYC, and HEDT processors. This release adds support for parallel CPU booting to significantly reduce kernel boot time. This feature will greatly benefit servers with high core counts, allowing faster boot times, especially when using Kexec for seamless kernel version updates.
AMD engineers have diligently addressed system suspend/restart issues, especially with AMD laptops, to improve reliability. By fixing the missing check in the USB. While it may seem small, this optimization is significant in the broader context of AMD’s ongoing efforts to optimize the Linux experience on its AMD platforms. So, if you use a Ryzen laptop, you may see faster recovery times with this kernel version across various Linux distributions.
Further improvements in processors
With recent additions to the amd64_edac Linux kernel driver, AMD 7000 series desktop processors will now receive similar treatment to the EPYC 9004 series in terms of EDAC reporting. This includes ECC error reporting for supported RAM/motherboard configurations.
AMD’s open-source Linux graphics driver team recently introduced a notable set of fixes to their display code, specifically the “DC” codebase in the AMDGPU kernel graphics driver. With the upcoming Linux kernel 6.5 release, these patches will bring another attempt at enabling FreeSync Video as the default setting. In the past, there have been concerns about blocking and corruption issues on eDP boards. However, with the latest patches, these issues have been successfully resolved, ensuring this feature is enabled by default.
ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X670E Hero motherboard sensor monitoring is now available in Linux kernel 6.5. It is marketed as a high-end motherboard for AMD Ryzen 7000/AM5 series processors.
Wrapping Up
The Linux kernel 6.5 is easily downloaded from the kernel.org website or Linus Torvalds’ Git repository. Remember that since this is the source code, manual compilation is required. As an alternative, you can wait for Linux 6.5 to appear in the stable software repositories of your GNU/Linux distribution for a trouble-free update.
In the first or second week of September 2023, Arch Linux users can anticipate receiving this version through their monthly ISO refresh.
By the end of this year, users of Ubuntu 23.10 may be able to use this Kernel with their distribution. Additionally, this version is anticipated to be included in Fedora 39, which is set for release in Q4 2023.
Learn about the linux commands by clicking the links below
https://linuxiron.com/echo-command-in-linux/
https://linuxiron.com/how-to-use-nice-renice-commands-in-linux/
https://linuxiron.com/how-to-use-kill-commands-in-linux/
https://linuxiron.com/a-beginners-guide-to-htop-for-process-management/
https://linuxiron.com/15-useful-yum-commands-in-linux/
https://linuxiron.com/how-to-use-the-top-command-in-linux/
https://linuxiron.com/17-ps-command-to-monitor-linux-process-with-examples-linuxiron/
https://linuxiron.com/12-cat-commands-in-linux-with-examples/
https://linuxiron.com/archiving-and-compressing-files-and-directories-in-linux/
https://linuxiron.com/how-to-run-the-du-command-in-linux/
https://linuxiron.com/how-to-backup-and-restore-the-linux-system/