USB4 Support Lands In The Linux 5.6 Kernel

Written by Michael Larabel in Hardware on 29 January 2020 at 08:50 PM EST. 31 Comments
HARDWARE
Ahead of USB4 devices expected to begin appearing later this year, the Linux 5.6 kernel is wired up with initial USB4 support.

We were expecting USB4 in Linux 5.6 and indeed it has happened. It was just last September that the USB4 specification was published but allowing this Linux kernel enablement to come rather quickly is that it's based on Thunderbolt 3. This USB4 enablement for the Linux kernel is based in large part on the existing Thunderbolt Linux code.

Intel's big open-source team was able to get the initial USB4 code ready for Linux 5.6. This USB4 support also shifts the Kconfig options to the USB4 naming scheme from Thunderbolt.


Besides the USB4 support in Linux 5.6, other USB/Thunderbolt work includes support for separate DisplayPort alternate mode devices within the Type-C code, the ability to handle USB wake events from USB devices in S2 mode (USB Wake-On), many NVIDIA Tegra USB updates, support for the MediaTek MUSB controller, support for USB 3.x tunnels within Thunderbolt, and various other USB support improvements.

The complete list of USB changes for Linux 5.6 via this pull request which has since been merged to mainline.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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