Linux 6.12 Preps For Release With Real-Time, Sched_Ext, Stable Xe2 & Raspberry Pi 5

The Linux 6.12 kernel is expected to be released this coming Sunday, 17 November, barring any last minute issues that would force the stable kernel to be diverted to the following Sunday. Linux 6.12 is delivering many exciting new features and beyond that it's all the more exciting with it expected to be this year's Long-Term Support (LTS) kernel version.

As it's been two months since the merge window, here is a look back at some of the most interesting features that were merged for Linux 6.12:

- Real-time "PREEMPT_RT" support is finally mainlined in the Linux kernel! It's been two decades in the making but over the finish line at long last.

- Sched_ext was merged for more extensible kernel scheduler support making use of (e)BPF programs.

- Support for QR code error messages within DRM Panic as Linux's "Blue Screen of Death" like facility.

- Intel Xe2 Lunar Lake and Battlemage graphics are enabled by default.

- Other early enablement work for next-gen Intel Panther Lake processors as well as Xeon Diamond Rapids processors.

- More AMD RDNA4 enablement work within the AMDGPU and AMDKFD driver code.

- Improved hybrid CPU capacity scaling for Intel Lunar Lake CPUs and other future processors with P/E cores but no HT/SMT.

- The Intel Linux graphics driver is finally able to report fan speeds for graphics cards.

- Initial Raspberry Pi 5 support within the mainline Linux kernel has finally landed!

- More Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 laptop upstreaming support... This cycle the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 and Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 have initial mainline kernel support.

- A lot of new networking hardware support.

For the complete overview of Linux 6.12 changes, see our Linux 6.12 feature overview. Linux 6.12 is looking and performing great. Once Linux 6.12 is out, it's on to the Linux 6.13 cycle for even more excitement.