Linux Kernel 7.2 Released with AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 FRL Support
Linux 7.2, the new major kernel version, was released on Sunday! Linus Torvalds announced this kernel on lkml:
Well, this last week of the release was – once again – bigger than I would have wished for, but hey, with the whole “new normal” thing, if I delayed releases for that reason we’d probably never have a release at all.
There are a number of fairly late reverts – the drm scheduling reverts stand out, but there’s a few other ones in here too. It may not be pretty, but it’s the correct way to deal with “oh, that code wasn’t ready and caused problems”. People will be trying that again later.
What’s New in Linux Kernel 7.2
Linux 7.2 introduced cache aware scheduling that improves CPU performance by reducing unnecessary task migrations and cache misses.
It added the fast NEON-accelerated CRC64-NVMe checksum to supported 32-bit ARM systems. And, the standard RISC-V kernel now starts a little faster and works out of the box on ESWIN-based systems such as the HiFive Premier P550.
For Intel and AMD Processors
The new kernel added Nova Lake support to the Intel PMC driver, and improved Intel TDX (Trusted Domain Extensions) support that can apply security updates without system reboot.
It updated the EDAC (Error Detection And Correction) support for upcoming Intel Diamond Rapids, Nova Lake H, and Panther Lake H hardware. And, new CPU model ID added for recognizing Panther Lake R, Intel’s ruggedized Panther Lake variant for industrial/edge systems.
image from wikipedia.org
For AMD processors, the kernel added Zen 6 preparation including HFI ranking table v3 and PMC support for Family 1Ah Model 80h.
It added initial support for the new generation of AMD’s ACP7.D/7.E/7.F Audio Co-Processors. It introduced AMD ISP4 driver with mainline support for AMD’s newer Image Signal Processor (ISP) hardware, enabling web cameras on laptops such as the HP ZBook Ultra G1a with AMD Strix Halo, without needing a special Ubuntu OEM kernel.
For GPU
On the GPU side, the new kernel added initial HDMI 2.1 FRL support for modern AMD Radeon GPUs, though it isn’t enabled by default yet.
It introduced new AMDGPU DC power module that improves Linux laptop battery life and display power management while reducing AMD-specific quirks.
It also added early support for AMD’s next-generation AIE4 AI accelerator/NPU, including SR-IOV virtualization support, preparing Linux for future Ryzen AI hardware.
The kernel as well added Intel DRM driver support for the BACKGROUND_COLOR property, allowing Intel graphics to use the display hardware’s native background-color capability, potentially saving memory bandwidth when a solid background is needed.
It revealed Intel’s upcoming Crescent Island AI accelerator family likely has multiple hardware variants, while the Xe driver continues preparing support for them.
For NVIDIA, GA100 support is added to Nouveau. But only the kernel-driver part is complete, while Mesa/user-space support is still needed to make the accelerator fully usable with an entirely open-source stack.
It as well begins early kernel-level preparation for a future NVIDIA GPU generation, mainly by adapting CXL/VFIO support for hardware differences expected in “Blackwell-Next.”
MSI SUPRIM, NVIDIA RTX 5090
File System
Btrfs’ large-folio support is now considered stable, which can improve I/O efficiency and provide small performance gains in real workloads. It as well adds experimental 2 MiB huge folios, and contains several I/O optimizations that can significantly improve performance in particular workloads.
exFAT features a more modern I/O implementation, that has better file-system performance, especially when using exFAT on removable drives such as USB flash drives, SD cards, and external disks.
The kernel as well has many new hardware support, including:
- Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Folio keyboard support.
- HORI Wireless Switch Pad support.
- Support booting Apple M3 devices.
- Support extra button on the PlayStation DualSense Edge controller.
- Add mainline kernel support configuring OneXPlayer gaming handhelds
- RTL8159-based 10-Gbps USB Ethernet adapters support.
- Mainline battery/charger driver for the 2012 Microsoft Surface RT.
- New wacom_w9000 kernel driver for Wacom’s W9000-series pen-enabled touchscreens.
- Add support for several newer ROG/TUF laptops and the ASUS Keystone physical dongle.
- Alibaba Elastic Ethernet Adapter.
- Airoha AN8801R Gigabit Ethernet PHY.
- Support for Surface Pro 12-inch, OneXPlayer Super X, and battery charging modes for laptops using the Uniwill platform driver.
There are also tons of other changes in this kernel release, see the community maintained kernelnewbies page for details.
Get Linux Kernel 7.2
The source tarball of the new kernel is available to download in Kernel.org.
For Ubuntu, the new kernel is expected to be default in the next Ubuntu 26.10. And, Fedora has already included Linux 7.2 (RC at the moment) for the next 45 and Rawhide releases.
For testing purpose, Ubuntu will possibly build the Kernel 7.2 into .deb packages in kernel.ubuntu.com/mainline/.
Source: UbuntuHandbook