Six Great Features With The Upcoming Linux 6.6 Kernel

Tomorrow the Linux 6.6 kernel is expected to be released as stable unless Linus Torvalds has last minute reservations and decides to extend the cycle by an extra week. While there were many last minute fixes this week, the changes don't appear to be too scary or invasive. In any event the Linux 6.6 kernel is bringing some exciting features.

After the merge window ended in September I did write a Linux 6.6 feature overview. The short summary for those needing a reminder about what makes Linux 6.6 great, the six best changes/features that come to mind include:

- The EEVDF scheduler was mainlined as an improvement over the prior CFS scheduler code.

- Intel Shadow Stack finally made it to mainline as a CPU security feature of recent Intel and AMD processors to help avoid ROP attacks.

- AMD FreeSync Panel Replay as a forthcoming alternative to Panel Self Refresh (PSR) for laptop displays.

- The Nouveau user-space API additions needed by the newly-merged NVIDIA "NVK" Vulkan driver premiering in Mesa 23.3.

- Intel has continued upstreaming more driver code for enabling Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake processors.

- There has been some Linux 6.6 server performance improvements especially on high core count AMD EPYC servers as well as Intel Xeon Max / Sapphire Rapids performance.

See the Linux 6.6 feature list for a lengthier look at all the great changes for this kernel. Linux 6.6 will also likely be this year's Long-Term Support (LTS) kernel release given it will be the last stable kernel series of 2023.

Stay tuned for more Linux 6.6 kernel benchmarking as well as the Linux 6.7 merge window to kick-off with many more exciting features in tow.