Linux 6.17 Drops Pktcdvd Driver, Many Block & IO_uring Improvements
([Linux Storage] 4 Hours Ago
Linux 6.17 Block)
- Reference: 0001565256
- News link: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.17-Block-Changes
- Source link:
Merged already for the in-development Linux 6.17 kernel were the many block subsystem and IO_uring changes for enhancing I/O on Linux as we roll toward the H2'2025 Linux distribution releases.
Merged as part of the block changes for the new kernel are [1]dropping the pktcdvd driver . The pktcdvd driver is the packet writing CD-RW / DVD-RW / DVD+RW / DVDRAM driver that was already deprecated in the kernel. The main use of this packet writing CD/DVD driver was for direct mount with UDF of CD-RW drivers. But this driver isn't used so much these days, the code is unmaintained, and the broken code is causing other problems and thus now removed.
The [2]block pull also includes clean-ups for the MD code, various minor improvements to the NVMe code, support for ublk batchc ommands, faster ublk exit handling, converting NVMe to use the IOVA-based API, increasing the default max transfer size, and other alterations.
Meanwhile the [3]IO_uring merge added some new optimizations, avoiding unnecessary memory copies in uring_cmd usage, support for returning TX timestamps via a new socket command, and support for an IO_uring mock file. IO_uring also saw work to prepare for supporting larger pages in the zero-copy receive code. The IO_uring "mock" file is intended to be able to do better testing in terms of IO_uring request handling as a facility for easily testing that code.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-To-Remove-pktcdvd
[2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=6e11664f148454a127dd89e8698c3e3e80e5f62f
[3] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=c3018a2c6adae9b32f7b9259f5b38257ba9a758e
Merged as part of the block changes for the new kernel are [1]dropping the pktcdvd driver . The pktcdvd driver is the packet writing CD-RW / DVD-RW / DVD+RW / DVDRAM driver that was already deprecated in the kernel. The main use of this packet writing CD/DVD driver was for direct mount with UDF of CD-RW drivers. But this driver isn't used so much these days, the code is unmaintained, and the broken code is causing other problems and thus now removed.
The [2]block pull also includes clean-ups for the MD code, various minor improvements to the NVMe code, support for ublk batchc ommands, faster ublk exit handling, converting NVMe to use the IOVA-based API, increasing the default max transfer size, and other alterations.
Meanwhile the [3]IO_uring merge added some new optimizations, avoiding unnecessary memory copies in uring_cmd usage, support for returning TX timestamps via a new socket command, and support for an IO_uring mock file. IO_uring also saw work to prepare for supporting larger pages in the zero-copy receive code. The IO_uring "mock" file is intended to be able to do better testing in terms of IO_uring request handling as a facility for easily testing that code.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-To-Remove-pktcdvd
[2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=6e11664f148454a127dd89e8698c3e3e80e5f62f
[3] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=c3018a2c6adae9b32f7b9259f5b38257ba9a758e
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