The [1]Linux 7.1 development kernel that [2]amounts to nearly 40 million lines has a lot of new features and changes in tow. While Linux 7.1 stable won't be out until mid-June, here is a look at the interesting changes coming with this next stable version of the Linux kernel.

Linux 7.1 adds the Apple SMC power driver for finally reporting battery metrics on Apple Silicon MacBook laptops using the mainline kernel, AMD is preparing new graphics hardware support, Intel has begun enabling Nova Lake P graphics support, and many other hardware support additions. Also very significant for Linux 7.1 is the introduction of a new NTFS driver that aims to provide better performance and features than the existing NTFS file-system options for Linux users.

Linux 7.1 is also notable for its code removals. Driven by AI-assisted bug reporting, ISDN and other old network driver code was removed to avoid that influx of bug reporting against those very rarely touched or used drivers for obsolete hardware. Bus mouse support was also removed as were some obsolete PCMCIA drivers and retiring of UDP-Lite kernel support. There was also the removal of some old PCI drivers. Most notable on the removal side is beginning to phase out Intel 486 CPU support.

Linux 7.1 is also showing off [3]some nice incremental performance improvements and performance enhancements like enabling Intel FRED by default that is of immediate benefit to Panther Lake systems. More Linux 7.1 kernel performance benchmarks are forthcoming on different hardware platforms at Phoronix.

Continue on for the more exhaustive look at interesting changes to find with the forthcoming Linux 7.1 kernel.

Processors:

- [4]Beginning to retire Intel 486 "i486" CPU support from the mainline kernel. The code still remains but the build options are initially dropped for beginning to phase out that old CPU support.

- [5]Intel FRED is enabled by default for Flexible Return and Event Delivery that is a performance win for Panther Lake systems where it debuted as well as upcoming Intel Diamond Rapids and AMD Zen 6 processors.

- [6]AMD CPPC performance priority and dynamic/raw EPP handling with the Linux 7.1 kernel for AMD processors.

- [7]Support for 12 new SoCs and other ARM and RISC-V hardware platforms are now mainlined with Linux 7.1.

- The Linux 7.1 mainline kernel [8]now supports real-time "RT" kernel builds on ARM . Not to be confused with AArch64 that has already had mainline RT kernel support, but now 32-bit ARM can also enjoy real-time without needing any out-of-tree patches.

- The mainline Linux kernel has [9]begun removing support for Russia's Baikal CPUs .

- [10]Intel QAT Zstd support was mainlined to the Linux kernel as well as QuickAssist Gen6 hardware support improvements.

- The x86_energy_perf_policy tool that lives within the kernel source tree [11]now supports the Intel SoC slide support that is relevant to Intel's Panther Lake SOCs.

- [12]The AMD SBI driver is getting ready for next-gen EPYC Venice processors .

- Also in preparing for AMD EPYC Venice are [13]support for new AMD SMCA bank types .

- [14]HIGHMEM support and other LoongArch improvements for that kernel port.

- A [15]workaround for the Arm C1-Pro processor erratum .

- [16]Very experimental support for pKVM protected guests with KVM virtualization.

- [17]x86/x86_64 now aligning with other architectures for custom restart handlers .

- [18]Idle SMT sibling improvements for the extensible scheduler "sched_ext" code.

- [19]Intel LASS is now deemed in good shape for this Linear Address Space Separation security feature.

- [20]WQ_AFFN_CACHE_SHARD as a workqueue improvement for CPUs with many cores per LLC.

- Some merged changes [21]may begin to have a negative impact for 32-bit systems running Linux 7.1+ in prioritizing Linux 64-bit capabilities.

Graphics / Accelerators:

- [22]AMDGPU DC support for GCN 1.1 APUs like Kaveri in finally filling that gap between AMDGPU and Radeon. In turn those "Sea Islands" APUs now default to the AMDGPU kernel driver rather than the legacy Radeon driver.

- At the same time as improving old hardware support on AMDGPU by Valve, AMD is working on [23]new hardware support in the AMDGPU driver for Linux 7.1.

- Intel meanwhile is [24]enabling Nova Lake P graphics with Linux 7.1.

- The Intel Xe driver can now [25]better cope with video memory pressure / OOM behavior via a new user-space interface.

- [26]A new Coreboot frame-buffer DRM driver .

- [27]Ryzen AI NPU power estimate reporting with the AMDXDNA driver as well as per-process memory usage queries.

- [28]Various other kernel graphics/display driver and accelerator driver enhancements .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+7.1

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Kernel-Nearly-40M

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-rc1-Threadripper

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Begins-Removing-i486

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Enabled-Intel-FRED

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Power-Management

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-SoCs

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-ARM-RT

[9] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Dropping-Baikal-CPUs

[10] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Crypto-QAT-Zstd

[11] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-SoC-Slider-Utility

[12] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-SBI-EPYC-Venice

[13] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-2026-New-SMCA-Bank-Types

[14] https://www.phoronix.com/news/LoongArch-Linux-7.1

[15] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Arm-C1-Pro-Fix

[16] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-KVM

[17] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-x86-Custom-Restart

[18] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-sched-ext

[19] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-LASS-Linux-7.1

[20] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-WQ

[21] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-VFS-Kino-32-bit

[22] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Final-AMDGPU

[23] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-More-AMDGPU

[24] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Xe-VM-BIND-DECOMPRESS

[25] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Xe-Purgeable-BO

[26] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-DC8200-Coreboot-FB

[27] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Ryzen-AI-NPU-Power

[28] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.1-Graphics-Drivers