Along with the [1]staging updates , [2]driver core , and [3]char/misc merges this week for the areas of the kernel overseen by Greg Kroah-Hartman, he also sent out the USB and Thunderbolt updates for the Linux 6.15 kernel.

The USB/Thunderbolt changes for Linux 6.15 aren't too particularly exciting unless you are a customer of any of the newly-enabled hardware. Greg commented of the changes in [4]the pull request :

"Here is the big set of USB and Thunderbolt driver updates for 6.15-rc1. Included in here are:

- Thunderbolt driver and core api updates for new hardware and features

- usb-storage const array cleanups

- typec driver updates

- dwc3 driver updates

- xhci driver updates and bugfixes

- small USB documentation updates

- usb cdns3 driver updates

- usb gadget driver updates

- other small driver updates and fixes"

When digging deeper into the USB/Thunderbolt patches, first up there is support for the Parade PS8830 USB Type-C Retimer. The Parade PS8830 is a re-timer for USB4, DisplayPort, and Thunderbolt 4 controlled via I2C. Typically this IC is used between a USB/DP PHY and the Type-C connector. Making this PS8830 addition more notable is that it's used by several Snapdragon X Elite laptops. The driver in its initial form for Linux 6.15 supports DisplayPort 4-lanes, DisplayPort 2-lanes + USB3, and USB3 modes of operation. This new driver is named ps883x.

The USB DWC3 driver meanwhile has seen the DT bindings added for Rockchip RK3562 SoC support. There is also a DT addition for the USB DWC3 for the Samsung Exynos 7870 and Exynos 990.

The rest of the changes for the USB/Thunderbolt work in Linux 6.15 is relatively small and random. All of these changes have been merged to Linux 6.15 Git.



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

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-Driver-Core

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-SPI-Offloading

[4] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/Z-2ZiogJ5hSxivJd@kroah.com/