Linus Torvalds was happy this week. He declared, "Linux 6.9 is now out, and … the whole release has felt pretty normal." Mr. Linux co

The top three Linux 6.9 kernel upgrades

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2024-05-16 21:00:03

Linus Torvalds was happy this week. He declared, "Linux 6.9 is now out, and … the whole release has felt pretty normal." Mr. Linux continued, "The changes [are] mostly being dominated by some driver updates (GPU and networking being the big ones)." So, what does the latest Linux kernel mean for us? Here are my thoughts on the most significant changes.

Linux 6.9 introduces support for AMD Preferred Core. This means Linux 6.9-based systems can prioritize high-performance cores for demanding tasks. The net effect should be to boost overall system efficiency. Additionally, it includes the FRU Memory Poison Manager. This isn't as dramatic as it sounds. It just helps manage error records on persistent storage. This release also includes support for AMD Secure Nested Paging (SNP) for enhanced security.

As for ARM, Linux 6.9 marks a significant milestone by introducing Rust support for the ARM64 architecture. This is one more step towards future Rust-based Linux kernel code. This release also adds support for various new ARM-based hardware, including the MediaTek MT8186-based Chromebooks. I expect we'll see more ARM improvements in future kernel releases since Torvalds now has, he tells us, a "powerful arm64 machine (thanks to Ampere), so the last week I've been doing almost as many arm64 builds as I have x86-64."