Linux Kernel 5.11 (Release Candidate) announced with more features and improvements
Two weeks after Linux 5.10 was officially released, Linux Kernel 5.11 is now open for the first release candidate (rc1) testing. There are more updates to be added and the final release of Linux Kernel 5.11 is said to be expected in mid-February. Though this also depends on the amount of RCs released.
Linus Torvalds mentioned in his merge log that “…it’s average, unless you look at the actual diffs, and notice another huge dump of AMD GPU descriptor header files, which completely dwarfs all the “real” changes here. The AMD “Van Gogh” include file additions are in fact about two-thirds of the whole patch, even if it comes from basically one single commit that just adds the register definitions…”
Thus, we can expect this Linux 5.11 release should be considered a medium-sized update when compared to the Linux 5.10 release awhile ago. And the updates this time would be AMD processors and GPU units focused with the addition of drivers.
New features to be added:
- Added support for AMD Zen1/Zen2/Zen3 PowerCap RAPL
- Added Software Guard Extensions support for Intel processors
- Added support for Intel Platform Monitoring Technology (PMT)
- AMD SFH driver and AMD SoC PMC driver included
- AMD Van Gogh APU and Green Sardine APU devices support added
- Intel Keem Bay display support
- Radeon RX 6800 and Intel DG1 supports
- ASUS new gaming laptop keyboards support
- Pioneer DDJ-RR DJ controller support
- Improvements on USB4 and Thunderbolt port
- Files systems and Btrfs will see continuous improvements as well
If you’re interested in testing the Linux Kernel 5.11 first Release Candidate, you may do so by clicking the link here to download the source tarball from kernel.org!
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