The Linux 6.15 merge window ended on Sunday with the release of [1]Linux 6.15-rc1 . There is a lot of exciting features and updates that were merged during the two-week merge window. Here is a look at all of the most prominent changes to be found with Linux 6.15.

[2]Linux 6.15 is shaping up to be another exciting kernel release. With how things are currently trending Linux 6.15 stable should be out by the end of May or could slip to early June if an extra release candidate is needed. Among the many changes to find with Linux 6.16 are support for a lot of newer hardware, the "hugetlb_alloc_threads" option for speeding up large Linux server boot times, the initial Rust-written open-source NVIDIA "NOVA" kernel driver code merged yet but not yet remotely useful to end-users, other Rust kernel additions, IO_uring network zero-copy receive support, nice support for the Apple Touch Bars, Zstandard 1.5.7 compression update, and much more. Continue reading for the more exhaustive look at interesting Linux 6.15 features.

Processors:

- [3]A wide assortment of AMD and Intel CPU support improvements like [4]support for using AMD INVLPGB for broadcast TLB invalidation and [5]FineIBT-BHI .

- [6]Early work on enabling Intel APX support .

- [7]Much faster CRC code for AVX-512 CPUs .

- [8]Turbostat can now work with up to 8192 CPU cores compared to the 1024 CPU core limit that's now been breached by some users.

- The performance events code has added [9]support for AMD Zen 5 load latency filtering .

- [10]Faster AES-CTR for AMD Zen 5 and other newer Intel/AMD processors among the many crypto subsystem improvements for Linux 6.15.

- [11]RISC-V support for BFloat16 . A number of other newer RISC-V instructions are also now supported besides BF16.

- [12]More features for LoongArch like UBSAN kernel support, improved BPF JIT, and other kernel features.

- [13]AMD P-State driver improvements .

- [14]Fixing a significant performance regression for the CPUIdle governor on tickless Linux systems that could yield around a 50% performance regression previously for SPECjbb Java tests.

- [15]Intel and AMD KVM updates .

- [16]Intel TDX improvements to avoid a "slow and buggy" code path .

- [17]MIPS multi-cluster support was merged and using it for the Mobileye EyeQ6 SoC.

- [18]Support for the AMD Versal NET SoC .

- [19]Arm Morello, Apple T2, MNT Reform 2, and many other SoC and device additions/changes .

- [20]Intel Raptor Lake S support within the EDAC driver .

Graphics Cards / GPUs:

- [21]The very primitive NOVA driver code was merged for this open-source, Rust-based NVIDIA kernel graphics/display driver relying on the NVIDIA GSP (GPU System Processor) with Turing and newer GPUs. This ultimate successor to the Nouveau driver is still in the very early stages of development and not yet usable or anything like that with Linux 6.15. Over time this driver will gradually build up in the mainline kernel and become useful.

- [22]Intel Xe driver support for Shared Virtual Memory (SVM).

- [23]Standardized reporting to user-space of hung GPUs .

- There is also [24]Intel Xe driver EU stall sampling support .

- [25]a new survivability mode for the Intel Xe driver .

- Introducing to the Intel driver [26]Xe3's new dirty rect feature .

- [27]Intel GPU and VRAM temperature reporting with the Xe driver .

- [28]Intel GuC SLPC power profile support .

- [29]AMDGPU support for the OEM i2c interface for RGB lighting and other controls used by some AMD Radeon board partners.

- [30]New AMD hardware support for various new IP blocks on upcoming GPUs/APUs.

- [31]AMD Radeon RX 9070 series fan speed reporting .

- [32]Apple Touch Bar display support .

- [33]Various other graphics/display driver additions .

Linux Storage / File-Systems:

- [34]Enabling block sizes greater than the page size .

- [35]EROFS can now deal with much larger data such as for AI model training.

- [36]The Bcachefs on-disk format is now considered "soft frozen" ahead of removing its experimental tag hopefully in the near future.

- [37]Fast/realtime Zstd data compression for Btrfs .

- [38]Preparations for large atomic write support . In a future kernel release EXT4 and XFS are already preparing to support large atomic write handling.

- [39]Inline crypto passthrough for the DM-Stripe target are among the Device Mapper updates.

- [40]Support for much larger filenames with FUSE in going from a 1024 to 4096 filename length limit for file-systems in user-space.

- [41]EXT4 is better hardened against maliciously-fuzzed file-systems .

- [42]Various F2FS enhancements .

- [43]exFAT can now handle deleting files much faster .

- [44]Minor VFS file optimizations .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-rc1-Released

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+6.15

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-x86-core-Intel-AMD

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-INVLPGB-Merged-Linux-6.15

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-FineIBT-BHI-TIP

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-x86-FPU

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-CRC

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-Turbostat

[9] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-Perf-Events

[10] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-Crypto

[11] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-RISC-V

[12] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-LoongArch

[13] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-ACPI-PM

[14] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-ACPI-PM

[15] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-KVM

[16] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-TDX-Avoiding-HLT-Linux

[17] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-MIPS

[18] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-AMD-Versal-NET

[19] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-SoC-DT-Updates

[20] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-EDAC

[21] https://www.phoronix.com/news/NOVA-Driver-For-Linux-6.15

[22] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Xe-SVM-For-Linux-6.15

[23] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.14-Wedged-GPUs-User

[24] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Xe-SVM-For-Linux-6.15

[25] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Xe-Linux-6.15-First

[26] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Xe3-Dirty-Rect-Linux-6.15

[27] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Xe-Linux-6.15-First

[28] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-sysfs-GuC-SLPC-Profile

[29] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMDGPU-More-i2c-Bus

[30] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMDGPU-Linux-6.15

[31] https://www.phoronix.com/news/RX-9070-Fan-Speed-Linux-6.15

[32] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Apple-Touch-Bar-Display-Linux

[33] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-DRM-Graphics-Drivers

[34] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-BS-Greater-Than-PS

[35] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-EROFS

[36] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Bcachefs-Linux-6.15

[37] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-Btrfs

[38] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Preps-Large-Atomic-Write

[39] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-DM

[40] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-FUSE

[41] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-EXT4

[42] https://www.phoronix.com/news/F2FS-Linux-6.15

[43] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-exFAT

[44] https://www.phoronix.com/news/VFS-File-Optimizations-6.15