KernelNewbies:

Changes done in each Linux kernel release. Other places to get news about the Linux kernel are LWN kernel status or the Linux Kernel mailing list (there is a web interface in www.lkml.org or lore.kernel.org/lkml). The lore.kernel.org/lkml/ archive is also available via NTTP if you prefer to use a newsreader: use nntp://nntp.lore.kernel.org/org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel for that. List of changes of older releases can be found at LinuxVersions. If you're going to add something here look first at LinuxChangesRules!

You can discuss the latest Linux kernel changes on the New Linux Kernel Features Forum.

Linux 6.19 changelog.

Summary: Linux 6.19 adds a new listns(2) system call that makes much easier to list the namespaces present on the system; support for the Live Update Orchestrator, which allows to reboot a kernel via kexec while enough kernel state to allow virtual virtual machines continue working after a reboot; support for PCIe Link Encryption which lets PCIe devices encrypt its communication with confidential VMs; Btrfs support for the experimental shutdown ioctl and suspension during scrub or device replaces; Ext4 support for block devices larger than page size and faster online defragmentation; support for the color pipeline API for better and faster HDR graphics; improvements to io_uring; and support for the SFrame format that brings faster frame unwinding. As always, there are many other features, new drivers, improvements and fixes.

You might also be interested in the list of changes done by LWN: merge window part 1, part 2

1. Prominent features

1.1. New listns(2) system call to list namespaces

There was no direct way for userspace programs on Linux to enumerate namespaces in the system. Applications must resort to scanning /proc/<pid>/ns/ across all processes, which is inefficient, incomplete, permission-heavy, there is no ordering or ownership, no filtering...this release incorporates a new system call, listns(2), which solves these problems by providing direct kernel-level enumeration of namespaces. It is similar to listmount() but tailored to namespaces

Recommended LWN article: Namespace reference counting and listns()

1.2. Live update orchestrator

This series introduces the Live Update Orchestrator, a kernel subsystem designed to facilitate live kernel updates using a kexec-based reboot. This has been designed primarily to allows virtual machines to continue working after the reboot with minimal downtime, a capability that is critical for cloud environments, but LUO is designed to be workload-agnostic. LUO achieves these goals by preserving the state of selected resources, such as memory, devices and their dependencies, across the kernel transition.

Recommended LWN article: Kexec handover and the live update orchestrator

This release adds support to enable PCIe Link Eencryption and secure Device Authentication. This encryption can be used to communicate confidential VMs (like AMD SEV-SNP or Intel TDX): the PCIe traffic between the VM and the device is encrypted and authenticated on the wire, so the host OS or other devices cannot snoop on DMA traffic, observe or inject data

1.4. Btrfs improvements

This release includes a few important improvements for the Btrfs file system: scrub and device replacement no longer block attempts to suspend the system (scrub records the last state and can continue from there; the device replacement has to be restarted from the beginning); adds support for the shutdown ioctl, improves the (experimental) support for block sizes being larger than the memory page size in RAID56 setups; and it also includes preparations for fscrypt support and some locking performance improvements when the file system is processing space reservation tickets

1.5. Ext4 support for block sizes larger than page size

This release enables support for file system block sizes that are larger than the computer page size (4KB in x86). Larger block sizes have advantages and disadvantages, on the advantage size it can improve buffered IO write performance by about 50% on average (direct IO shows some degradation, due to the increased time spent doing checksums - larger block sizes are not always better). Benchmark details can be found here. This release also optimizes and greatly improves the throughput of online defragment.

1.6. Add color pipeline API, sharpness property, plus other graphic updates

This release adds support in the graphic driver layer for color pipeline. This API supports pre-, and post-blending complex color transformations in display controller hardware in order to allow for HW-supported HDR use-cases, as well as to provide support to color-managed applications, such as video or image editors.

It is possible to support an HDR output on HW, but that requires the compositor or application to render and compose the content into one final buffer intended for display. Doing so is costly. Most modern display hardware supports varios methods to do color transformations, faster and more power efficient than performing similar operations via shaders or CPU. The color pipeline API allows to make use of this hardware functionality to support complex color transformations with no, or minimal CPU or shader load.

There are also other updates done to the graphic layer, such as the sharpness property, which can be set by userspace with desired sharpness strength, which enables adaptive sharpening filter for Intel LNL onwards. There is also a new Arm Ethos NPU accelerator driver, initial Xe3P support in xe, or support in the amdgpu driver for discrete SI/CIK cards (that were previously only support by radeon), which enables vulkan support in userspace for them.

1.7. io_uring updates

As with many other releases, this one includes a few updates to io_uring. This release adds:

  • - Support for mixed sized SQEs (6.18 added support for mixed sized CQEs, this adds similar support for SQEs, where the occasional need for a 128b SQE doesn't necessitate having all SQEs be 128b in size

    - Introduce zcrx and SQ/CQ layout queries. The former returns what zcrx features are available. And both return the ring size information to help with allocation size calculation for user provided rings like IORING_SETUP_NO_MMAP and IORING_MEM_REGION_TYPE_USER - Add support for getsockname and getpeername, which is mostly a trivial hookup after a bit of refactoring on the networking side - Introduce IORING_REGISTER_ZCRX_CTRL and RQ flushing

1.8. SFrame support for faster frame unwinding

The kernel needs to unwind stacks for some tools like perf. One of the most common solutions is to use frame pointers, but that solution degrades performance. Another solution is to use DWARF debugging information, but it's a complex format that it's too slow to parse. There has been work to design a new format, SFrame, which has been implemented by GCC (and LLVM in the future) and binutils. This format contains the minimal information to allow fast stack tracing, and support has been added for it in this release.

Recommended LWN article: https://lwn.net/Articles/1029189/SFrame-based stack unwinding for the kernel

2. Core (various)

3. File systems

4. Memory management

5. Block layer

6. Tracing, perf and BPF

7. Virtualization

8. Cryptography

9. Security

10. Networking

11. Architectures

12. Drivers

12.1. Graphics

12.2. Power Management

12.3. Storage

12.4. Drivers in the Staging area

12.5. Networking

12.6. Audio

12.7. Tablets, touch screens, keyboards, mouses

  • Add support for sound profile switching and leverage for oneplus slider (cover), commit

  • Add support for pf1550 pmic mfd-based drivers (cover), commit, commit, commit, commit, commit

  • Xpad: add support for crkd guitars commit

  • Elecom: Add support for ELECOM M-XT3DRBK (018C) commit

  • pf1550: add onkey support commit

  • i8042 - add quirk for ASUS Zenbook UX425QA_UM425QA commit

  • i8042 - add quirks for MECHREVO Wujie 15X Pro commit

  • HID
    • hid-lg-g15: Add hw_brightness_changed support for the G510 keyboard commit

    • Map HID_GD_Z to ABS_DISTANCE for stylus/pen commit

    • lg-g15 - Add support for Logitech G13. commit

    • logitech-dj: Add support for G Pro X Superlight 2 receiver commit

    • logitech-dj: Add support for a new lightspeed receiver iteration commit

    • logitech: add HID++ support for Logitech MX Anywhere 3S commit

    • uclogic: Add support for the XP-PEN Artist 24 Pro commit

    • winwing: Improve Orion2 throttle support commit

    • Elecom: Add support for ELECOM M-XT3DRBK (018C) commit

    • bpf: Add fixup for Logitech SpaceNavigator variants commit

    • bpf: Add support for XP-Pen Deco02 commit

    • bpf: Add support for the Inspiroy 2M commit

    • bpf: Add support for the Waltop Batteryless Tablet commit

    • bpf: Add support for the XP-Pen Deco 01 V3 commit

    • bpf: add support for Huion Kamvas 13 (Gen 3) (model GS1333) commit

    • bpf: add the Huion Kamvas 27 Pro commit

12.8. TV tuners, webcams, video capturers

12.9. Universal Serial Bus

12.10. Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)

12.11. Watchdog

12.12. Serial

12.13. CPU Frequency scaling

  • intel_pstate: Add Diamond Rapids OOB mode support commit

  • tegra186: add OPP support and set bandwidth commit

  • intel_pstate: hybrid: Adjust energy model rules commit

12.14. Voltage, current regulators, power capping, power supply

12.15. Real Time Clock (RTC)

12.16. Pin Controllers (pinctrl)

12.17. Multi Media Card (MMC)

  • core: Allow more host caps to be modified through debugfs commit

  • dw_mmc-rockchip: Add memory clock auto-gating support commit

  • Add support for eswin eic7700 sd/emmc controller (cover), commit, commit

12.18. Memory Technology Devices (MTD)

12.19. Industrial I/O (iio)

12.20. Multi Function Devices (MFD)

12.21. Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM)

12.22. Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C + I3C)

12.23. Hardware monitoring (hwmon)

  • pmbus: isl68137: Add support for raa229141 commit

  • adt7410: Support adt7422 chip commit

  • aht10: Add support for dht20 commit

  • asus-ec-sensors: add Pro WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI commit

  • asus-ec-sensors: add ROG STRIX X470-I GAMING commit

  • asus-ec-sensors: add ROG STRIX X870-F GAMING WIFI commit

  • asus-ec-sensors: add ROG STRIX X870E-H GAMING WIFI7 commit

  • dell-smm: Add Dell G5 5505 to fan control whitelist commit

  • k10temp: Add AMD Steam Deck APU ID commit

  • nct6775: Add ASUS ROG STRIX X870E-H GAMING WIFI7 commit

  • ntc-thermistor: Add Murata ncp18wm474 commit

  • peci/cputemp: add Intel Emerald Rapids support commit

  • peci/dimmtemp: add Intel Emerald Rapids platform support commit

  • pmbus: add driver for MPS MP9945 commit, commit

  • pmbus/max17616: add driver for max17616 commit

  • macsmc: add rtc, hwmon and hid subdevices (cover), commit, commit, commit, commit

  • Add support for mps mp2925 and mp2929 chip (cover), commit, commit

  • Add tsc1641 i2c power monitor driver (cover), commit, commit

  • pmbus/max34440: add support adpm12200 commit

12.24. General Purpose I/O (gpio)

12.25. Leds

  • leds-lp50xx: LP5009 supports 3 modules for a total of 9 LEDs commit

12.26. Hardware Random Number Generator (hwrng)

  • Allow runtime disabling of the HW RNG commit

12.27. Cryptography hardware acceleration

  • KEYS: trusted: caam based protected key commit

  • PCI/TSM: Enabling core infrastructure on AMD SEV TIO (cover), commit, commit, commit, commit

  • ccp: add support for pci device 0x115a commit

  • Add support for more aes modes in ti dthev2 (cover), commit

  • drbg: Export CTR DRBG DF functions commit

  • caam: Add support of paes algorithm commit

  • xilinx-trng: Add CTR_DRBG DF processing of seed commit

12.28. PCI

12.29. Clock

12.30. PHY ("physical layer" framework)

12.31. EDAC (Error Detection And Correction)

  • skx_common,imh: Add EDAC driver for Intel Diamond Rapids servers commit

  • Remove the legacy EDAC sysfs interface commit

12.32. IOMMU

12.33. Accel

  • amdxdna: Add IOCTL parameter for resource data commit

  • amdxdna: Add IOCTL parameter for telemetry data commit

  • ivpu: Add support for Nova Lake's NPU commit

  • ivpu: Add support for userptr buffer objects commit

  • qaic: Add Sub-system restart (SSR) (cover), commit, commit, commit

  • qaic: Add support for PM callbacks commit

  • qaic: Add support to export dmabuf fd commit

  • ivpu: Add fdinfo support for memory statistics commit

12.34. Various

13. List of Pull Requests

14. Other news sites

KernelNewbies: LinuxChanges (last edited 2026-01-20 20:20:07 by diegocalleja)