The [1]AMD Ryzen AI Halo mini PC powered by Ryzen AI Max+ "Strix Halo" began shipping this week. It features very nice Linux support out-of-the-box with the [2]Debian-based Ryzen AI Developer Platform operating system. For those wishing to run their own x86_64 Linux distribution, one of the only caveats in the Linux support is quite small... No mainline kernel support yet for controlled the RGB LED light strip on the driver. But that driver is coming and will hopefully be mainlined soon.

Since April there have been [3]AMD engineers working on this Halo Box RGB LED driver just not for turning the light strip on/off but also manipulating the RGB color of the driver. As of today that driver is up to its eighth revision for code review.

The new version brings mostly minor code changes as a result of the previous round of code review. From my monitoring, it's looking like the code review is about wrapped up and nearing the stage of being queued into the x86 platform driver's "-next" branch.

Barring any last minute surprises I am suspecting that this AMD Ryzen AI Halo RGB LED driver will be ready for upstreaming in the Linux 7.3 merge window in late August. Those with one of these $3,999 USD mini PCs right now can try out the driver if wanting to control the light bar via [4]the v8 driver patches .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-ai-halo

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/review/ryzen-ai-linux-os

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Halo-Box-RGB-LED-Driver

[4] https://lore.kernel.org/platform-driver-x86/20260709-halo-leds-v2-plus-v8-1-b34c64277193@amd.com/