On July 7 and by surprise, since even its creator was planning to launch one more Release Candidate, Linus Torvalds released Linux 5.2. The new version of the kernel, now available in Ubuntu 19.10, includes important news such as a improved support for Logitech wireless hardware or support for skip upper and lower case in the EXT4 file system, but the development of the Linux kernel does not stop and they are already preparing the release of Linux 5.3 with an interesting novelty: the support for the Intel Speed Select technology.
Some user was probably surprised to see that this week there was no Linux 5.3-rc1, but it is normal. In the weeks following the release of a major Linux kernel update, the pull requests window opens, and when they gather the necessary stuff, Torvalds releases the first Release Candidate of the new version. At the moment, little is known about the news that will arrive with Linux 5.3, but it is known that it will include support for the ISS mentioned above.
Intel Speed Select allows to separate processes by cores
Intel Speed Select (ISS, a different one than the International Space Station) was introduced as part of the processors Cascade Lake and it's about a technology that allows you to optimize your system with performance settings per core to prioritize some workloads while lowering the performance of other cores. Linux 5.3 will include support for this technology, so computers with such processors will be able to better manage performance and power when the next version of the Linux kernel is officially released.
The Intel SST driver allows a performance profile, an interface to define priority per core, an interface to control the base frequency of given cores, and support for setting different turbo ratio limits of all cores based on priority.
La Linux 5.3 official release date has yet to be revealed, but it will take place between the end of September and the beginning of October.