Linux 7.2 Features: Cache Aware Scheduling, USB4STREAM, AMD ISP4, AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 FRL

Linux 7.2 is working toward release in August with its more than 43 million lines in the codebase. With Linux 7.2 there are many new changes in tow as summed up in today's feature overview.

Among the biggest end user highlights of Linux 7.2 include merging Cache Aware Scheduling for helping with task placement on modern Intel/AMD CPUs, the very nifty USB4STREAM for data transfers between systems using USB4/Thunderbolt, Apple M3 can now boot on the mainline kernel but is not yet useful, the AMD ISP4 driver finally made it to mainline, initial AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 FRL support, and new guidelines to avoid further file-system proliferation in the Linux kernel.

Continue reading for the more exhaustive overview of prominent changes for Linux 7.2. More Linux 7.2 kernel performance benchmarking is underway at Phoronix.

- Apple M3 devices can now boot with the Linux 7.2 kernel but the support isn't yet in any practical stage for end users.

- Cache Aware Scheduling is merged for improved task placement on CPUs with multiple last-level cache (LLC) domains.

- Intel TDX now supports runtime updates to apply important security updates while avoiding a reboot/downtime for Trusted Domain Extensions.

- AMD on the audio co-processor side is preparing for "substantial design changes" with their next-gen audio IP.

- The AMD ISP4 driver was merged for finally enabling the web camera on the HP ZBook Ultra G1a laptop and other future high-end AMD Ryzen laptops.

- Intel EDAC driver preparations for Diamond Rapids and Nova Lake H.

- Not much on the ARM64 side due to the developers being flooded with AI-fueled fixes.

- RISC-V reducing kernel startup overhead and also enabling ESWIN SoC support by default with the Linux RISC-V defconfig.

- Continued phase-out of i486 CPU support that was initially dropped/disabled in Linux 7.1.

- Introducing Panther Lake R as the new "rugged" Panther Lake SoC version.

- A nice MGLRU improvement yielding 30~100% higher throughput for MongoDB in benchmarks conducted with the patches.

- Much faster poll performance and other speed-ups including some localhost networking speed-ups observed too in our testing.

- Cache Aware Scheduling can yield some nice improvements too for different processors and varying workloads.

- Improved anonymous/unnamed pipe performance for shell pipelines and more.

- AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 FRL support at long last and toward the ultimate goal of full HDMI 2.1 support in the upstream AMDGPU driver.

- AMD continues enabling next-gen graphics IP as well as next-gen NPU hardware.