About 7.2 Changes/Features…
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(06/09)
⇒ AMD Support Being Added To UFS Host Controller PCI Driver In Linux 7.2
Linux's ufshcd-pci as the Universal Flash Storage host controller PCI driver has supported a variety of Intel devices to this point while for Linux 7.2 the first AMD device is set to be added.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Preparing Intel Key Protection Technology "KPT" For Next-Gen QAT
Going back to the launch of 1st Gen Xeon Scalable processors in 2017 was Intel Key Protection Technology (KPT) promoted and there have been Key Protection Technology references in QuickAssist (QAT) documentation since 2016. Surprisingly we are only now seeing Key Protection Technology references for the upstream Linux QAT driver as Intel engineers prepare for their next-gen "Gen6" QuickAssist hardware support.
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(06/10)
⇒ Linux 7.2 To Enable ESWIN SoC Support By Default For RISC-V Kernel Builds
An important one-liner is set to come for Linux 7.2 to enable ESWIN SoC support by default for RISC-V kernel builds. This change will allow default RISC-V kernel builds in turn to boot on the likes of SiFive's HiFive Premier P550 developer board.
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(06/15)
⇒ Linux 7.2 To Better Communicate File-System Casefolding For Helping Windows NFS & More
Newly-merged code for the in-development Linux 7.2 kernel will now expose the case-folding (case insensitive) behavior of local file-systems so that Linux file servers and others can properly report the actual behavior rather than guessing if case-folding is actually used/supported.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Introducing The Rust Zerocopy Library To Eliminate More "Unsafe" Code
Miguel Ojeda already mailed in the many Rust code changes for the in-development Linux 7.2 kernel. This is quite a big Rust code with more than forty thousand new lines of Rust code in the kernel.
⇒ Cache Aware Scheduling Merged For Linux 7.2 For Boosting Modern Intel & AMD CPUs
The scheduler updates were merged this morning for the Linux 7.2 kernel and it's exciting. Cache Aware Scheduling has finally been merged! This is a win for especially modern Intel and AMD processors with multiple last level caches (LLCs).
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(06/16)
⇒ Linux 7.2 Optimization Shows +5% IOPS For EXT4 & XFS After Moving Around Two Lines Of Code
In addition to the surprising impact of /proc/filesystems read optimizations for Linux 7.2, another one of the VFS pull requests for this next kernel version is delivering some nice improvements for EXT4 and XFS around IOmap, the framework that maps
⇒ Linux 7.2 Drops Driver For The 40+ Year Old Hercules Monochrome ISA Graphics Card
After Linux 7.1 dropped support for old i486 CPUs and also began removing some old ISA and PCMCIA device drivers, there is some additional old hardware relics being cleared out of the in-development Linux 7.2 driver... The frame-buffer device driver for the old Hercules Monochrome ISA graphics card is now removed from the Linux kernel after decades at play.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Power Management Adds New Hardware Support While Dropping AMD Elan
The power management changes merged for the Linux 7.2 kernel are aplenty as usual. New hardware support, dropping obsolete hardware support, and various bug fixes and other enhancements throughout this important area of the kernel.
⇒ XFS Zone Allocator No Longer Experimental With Linux 7.2
The XFS file-system updates for the Linux 7.2 kernel aren't too notable with the exception of its zone allocator being promoted from behind its previously-experimental flag.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Continues Removing Old i486 Code Remnants, Adds Rugged Panther Lake
The x86/cpu changes have been merged for the Linux 7.2 kernel with an interesting span of changes covering 36 years from the Intel 486 days up to adding the new "rugged" Panther Lake variant.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Adds Ability To Limit Programs To Only Open Regular Files, Avoid Being Tricked Or Doing Silly Things
Merged as part of the many VFS changes for Linux 7.2 is the new OPENAT2_REGULAR flag for the openat2 system call. This can be used to limit programs to only open regular file-systems and avoid accidentally or intentionally opening up device files or other non-conventional data files on the file-system.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Can Significantly Lower Container Exit/Unmount Latency
A patch series merged for the Linux 7.2 kernel addresses a race condition that can occur when a container is exiting yielding "VFS: Busy inodes after unmount" messages and a possible user-after-free condition. But the patch series also goes further and delivers a very nice optimization to lower the container unmounting latency for environments with heavy I/O load.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Improves Anonymous/Unnamed Pipe Performance For Shell Pipelines & More
Yet another performance optimization merged for the in-development Linux 7.2 kernel is improving the speed of anon_pipe_write, the kernel function used for writing data into anonymous/unnamed pipes such as when using shell pipelines or standard streams from applications.
⇒ Btrfs Now Enables Large Folios By Default, Lands Huge Folios With Linux 7.2
The Btrfs file-system feature updates have been merged for the Linux 7.2 kernel with a few noteworthy changes for this copy-on-write file-system.
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(06/17)
⇒ IO_uring, NVMe & Other Block + Device Mapper Changes Merged For Linux 7.2
Linux 7.2 continues seeing a fair amount of storage-related changes from file-systems to the block device code itself, software RAID, the wonderful IO_uring interface, and more. Here is some of the latest feature work that has been merged for Linux 7.2.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Slab Changes Include More Performance Optimizations
The slab memory allocation changes for Linux 7.2 have been merged and continue to see more work around shaves and performance optimizations.
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(06/21)
⇒ Linux 7.2 Begins Making Preparations For NVIDIA "Blackwell-Next"
When going through the VFIO subsystem patches for the ongoing Linux 7.2 merge window, there isn't too much to get excited about for end users with these changes. But there is the first time mentioning "Blackwell-Next" enablement by NVIDIA for the Linux kernel.
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(06/22)
⇒ Linux 7.2 sched_ext Continues Working Toward Sub-Scheduler Support
Merged last week for the Linux 7.2 kernel were all of the sched_ext changes for this extensible scheduler support that allows loading BPF programs from user-space for handling scheduling tasks. Linux 7.2 continues building out sched_ext's sub-scheduler support.
⇒ OneXPlayer Configuration Driver Merged For Linux 7.2 Along With Other New Hardware
The HID subsystem updates have landed in the Linux 7.2 kernel with some treats that will excite Linux gamers and other desktop users.
⇒ USB4STREAM Merged For Linux 7.2 To Quickly Send Data Between USB4 Connected Systems
As part of today's USB/Thunderbolt subsystem updates for the ongoing Linux 7.2 kernel merge window, USB4STREAM was merged as a nifty and exciting addition to opening up some interesting USB4 connnectivity use-cases for high speed, low latency data transfers.
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(06/23)
⇒ Linux 7.2 RISC-V Reduces Kernel Startup Overhead, Eswin SoC Support By Default
Along with the many x86/x86_64 improvements and some ARM64 architecture improvements (albeit slowed down by the AI/LLM noise affecting the development pace), the RISC-V architecture changes were merged last week for the ongoing Linux 7.2 kernel development.
⇒ Linux 8250/16550 UART Serial Driver Seeing Some Modernization Work In 2026
The Linux 8250 serial driver as the universal/legacy driver for 8250 and 16550 type serial ports has been seeing some modernization work recently with a number of 8250 serial patches having now been merged for the Linux 7.2 kernel.
⇒ EROFS With Linux 7.2 Better Handles Large Sparse AI Datasets, More Efficient I/O
The EROFS open-source read-only file-system has some nice enhancements in place for the Linux 7.2 kernel.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Showing Some Unexpected & Nice Performance Gains On AMD EPYC Sorano
While the Linux 7.2 merge window doesn't wrap up until this weekend as the feature cut-off for new material, I have already begun some early benchmarks of the code currently staged for this next version of the Linux kernel. Linux 7.2 already was looking quite exciting with cache aware scheduling and other exciting new features while an unexpected surprise in my early testing this week was seeing some local network/socket performance improvements.
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(06/24)
⇒ Linux 7.2 Ready With IMA and EVM Post-Quantum ML-DSA Signature Support
The integrity subsystem changes merged last week for the Linux 7.2 kernel include support now for IMA and EVM post-quantum ML-DSA signature support.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Protects Against Crafted Perf Data From Going Rogue
With the help of Claude Opus 4.6, the Linux 7.2 kernel added protections to fend off specially crafted or corrupted perf data for the perf tool that could cause a number of issues for the running system.
⇒ "So Many AI-Fueled Fixes" Means No New ARM64 KVM Features For Linux 7.2
The KVM virtualization-related changes were merged a few days ago for the ongoing Linux 7.2 kernel merge window. While there are a number of features/improvements for AMD and Intel virtualization as well as the likes of s390 and RISC-V, there aren't any new features on ARM64. The lack of ARM64 feature work this cycle is being attributed to "so many AI-fueled fixes" swamping the ARM Linux developers.
⇒ F2FS Integrates FSERROR Reporting, Reduces Memory Footprint In Linux 7.2
The Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) changes have landed for Linux 7.2.
⇒ NTFS3 Driver Sees Bug Fixes & Minor Improvements With Linux 7.2
While the new NTFS file-system driver merged for Linux 7.1 and has seen more improvements for Linux 7.2, for now at least the NTFS3 kernel driver continues to be maintained with new fixes and improvements. NTFS3 is the driver that was upstreamed to the Linux kernel a few years ago back during the pandemic by Paragon Software
⇒ MGLRU Improvement Yielding Nice Gains On Linux 7.2: MongoDB 30~100% Higher Throughput
The many memory management "MM" related improvements were recently merged to Git for the Linux 7.2 kernel. As typical most kernel cycles, some of the low-level improvements can yield nice efficiency wins and better performance in different areas.
Enjoy-ID!
Enjoy-IT!> Per terminus, ad terminal
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(06/24)
⇒ Linux 7.2 Ready With IMA and EVM Post-Quantum ML-DSA Signature Support
The integrity subsystem changes merged last week for the Linux 7.2 kernel include support now for IMA and EVM post-quantum ML-DSA signature support.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Protects Against Crafted Perf Data From Going Rogue
With the help of Claude Opus 4.6, the Linux 7.2 kernel added protections to fend off specially crafted or corrupted perf data for the perf tool that could cause a number of issues for the running system.
⇒ "So Many AI-Fueled Fixes" Means No New ARM64 KVM Features For Linux 7.2
The KVM virtualization-related changes were merged a few days ago for the ongoing Linux 7.2 kernel merge window. While there are a number of features/improvements for AMD and Intel virtualization as well as the likes of s390 and RISC-V, there aren't any new features on ARM64. The lack of ARM64 feature work this cycle is being attributed to "so many AI-fueled fixes" swamping the ARM Linux developers.
⇒ F2FS Integrates FSERROR Reporting, Reduces Memory Footprint In Linux 7.2
The Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) changes have landed for Linux 7.2.
⇒ NTFS3 Driver Sees Bug Fixes & Minor Improvements With Linux 7.2
While the new NTFS file-system driver merged for Linux 7.1 and has seen more improvements for Linux 7.2, for now at least the NTFS3 kernel driver continues to be maintained with new fixes and improvements. NTFS3 is the driver that was upstreamed to the Linux kernel a few years ago back during the pandemic by Paragon Software
⇒ MGLRU Improvement Yielding Nice Gains On Linux 7.2: MongoDB 30~100% Higher Throughput
The many memory management "MM" related improvements were recently merged to Git for the Linux 7.2 kernel. As typical most kernel cycles, some of the low-level improvements can yield nice efficiency wins and better performance in different areas.
With the help of Claude Opus 4.6, …
Michael, please, where's the "Claude Opus 4.6" context? …
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(06/25)
⇒ KSMBD Adds SMB2 Compression Support In Linux 7.2
Merged back in Linux 5.15 in 2021 was KSMBD as an in-kernel SMB3 file server. There hasn't been much KSMBD news to report on recently but for Linux 7.2 there is now SMB2 compression support.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Staging Still Working To Tame The Realtek RTL8723BS "Beast Of A Driver"
Way back in 2017 for the Linux 4.12 kernel the Realtek rtl8723bs WiFi driver was added to the kernel's staging area. Nearly a decade later, it's still being cleaned-up to suit the more rigorous non-staging area of the kernel in the formal networking subsystem. For Linux 7.2, the staging pull request is once again dominated by clean-ups to this Realtek WiFi driver.
⇒ Linux Cache Aware Scheduling Extended For Even Better Performance: Up To 360% In MySQL
Cache Aware Scheduling is one of the most exciting kernel innovations to land in Linux this year. While it was finally merged last week to Linux 7.2, a new patch series today is already working to extend Cache Aware Scheduling and is showing some exciting performance improvements.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Drops Ancient PROFIBUS Driver: Ported From SCO Unix In 1998, Unused For Years
Linux 7.2 is continuing the trend of removing obsolete hardware drivers for which the code hasn't seen any maintenance in years and there are no believed users left of said drivers, especially those that would be running modern mainline versions of the Linux kernel. The char/misc changes merged dropped two more obsolete drivers from the Linux source tree.
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26/06/26
⇒ Linux 7.2 Adds New Driver For Wacom W9000 Pen-Enabled Touchscreens
The input subsystem changes were merged this week for Linux 7.2, which is seeing its merge window wrap up on Sunday. Most notable with the input updates is the introduction of the "wacom_w9000" for supporting newer, pen-enabled touchscreens.
⇒ Linux 7.2 Fixes Where PCIe Devices Could Be Inadvertently Restricted To 2.5 GT/s
The PCI/PCIe subsystem changes have been merged this week as we approach the end of the Linux 7.2 merge window.
The PCI code has lifted a 2.5GT/s speed restriction in the PCIe failed-link retraining code to avoid a situation where a link could be restricted to 2.5GT/s after hot-plug changes to the PCIe device.
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06/28
⇒ Linux 7.2 Surpasses More Than 43 Million Lines In The Kernel Tree
Today marks the last day of the Linux 7.2 merge window with Linux 7.2-rc1 due out later today. With the many new features and improvements merged over the past week since the Linux 7.1 stable debut, the Linux kernel source tree now exceeds 43 million lines.
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06/29
⇒ Linux 7.2 On Threadripper Shows Some Nice I/O Improvements & Faster Poll, Some Regressions
I have begun testing out Linux 7.2 on more hardware following the winding down of the merge window and culminating with yesterday's Linux 7.2-rc1 release. Today's tests are looking at how Linux 7.2 in its early development state is comparing to Linux 7.1 stable on AMD Ryzen Threadripper.
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