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Six Great Features With The Upcoming Linux 6.6 Kernel Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Kernel on 28 October 2023 at 09:19 AM EDT. 4 Comments LINUX 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. Linux 6.6 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. 4 Comments Tweet [INS::INS] Related News Some Of The Features You Can Expect With Linux 6.7 The VKMS Display Driver Continues Evolving Nicely For Headless Linux Systems Linux 6.6-rc7 Released: Linux 6.6 Final Likely Next Sunday Linux's DRM GPUVM Code Relicensed From GPLv2-Only To GPLv2 Or MIT Google Proposes New mseal() Memory Sealing Syscall For Linux Linux 6.6-rc6 Released: Plan For 6.6 Stable In Two Weeks About The Author Michael Larabel 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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