New in Linux kernel 6.8

Linux 6.8, the next major kernel release, is currently in development and expected to arrive sometime in March 2024. Here are some anticipated new features and improvements that I fished from the web (not a single source, but curated from development thread... ;)). Let me know if you find anything more!

Hardware Support:

• Intel: New drivers for Xe and PowerVR graphics, support for Lunar Lake Thunderbolt, FDINFO memory statistics on i915 driver, Idle driver support for new processors, QAT accelerator updates.
• AMD: Introduction of Address Translation Library (ATL) for easier code sharing.
• Other: Raspberry Pi 5 kernel graphics driver support, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 boot capability, LoongArch KVM support, Intel LAM for KVM.

Performance & Security:

• Atomic mode-setting: Enhanced mouse hotspots and asynchronous page flip support.
• Security: Kernel hardening improvements, potential bug fixes and vulnerabilities addressed.
• Storage: dmstats program for better visibility into storage usage and performance.

Other Features:

Dropping old drivers: Support for very old graphics drivers and ARM11 MPCore CPUs will be removed.
Blocking writes: Ability to block writes to mounted block devices.