The Linux 6.11 merge window is over with the Linux 6.11-rc1 release now out the door.
Linux 6.11 is bringing many new features across the board. There is initial support for some Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 laptops, a lot of CPU and GPU additions, other hardware support work, and a fair amount of kernel features added.
On the CPU side there is RISC-V NUMA support for ACPI-based systems, some small performance gains at least for Threadripper Zen 4, performance event improvements for more Intel CPUs, AES-GCM optimized versions for AVX-512/AVX10 and VAES, AMD Core Performance Boost and Fast CPPC were added to the AMD P-State driver, and AMD SEV-SNP KVM guest support is finally mainlined.
On the graphics side, the initial cut at Intel Xe2 Battlemage discrete graphics cards has landed, including the display functionality and initial device IDs. But more work on Battlemage will continue in the cycles ahead. AMD RDNA4 (GFX12) graphics cards also appear to be in preliminary good shape with Linux 6.11.
Other changes include UBIFS being hardened against power cuts, a minimum Rust toolchain version is now defined, getrandom() in the vDSO, a nice EXT4 performance optimization, the upstream kernel can now easily build a Pacman kernel package for Arch Linux systems, a new power sequencing subsystem, and more. I’ll have out my Linux 6.11 kernel feature overview in the coming days.
Stay tuned for my more extensive Linux 6.11 feature overview and the start of more Linux 6.11 kernel performance benchmarking.
As of writing, Linus Torvalds has yet to put out any formal statement of Linux 6.11-rc1 on the mailing list but the first release candidate can be downloaded via Linux Git for those interested in getting to testing right away.Update: Linus Torvalds has now posted his v6.11-rc1 announcement: “The merge window felt pretty normal, and the stats all look pretty normal too. I was expecting things to be quieter because of summer vacations, but that (still) doesn’t actually seem to have been the case.”
