Linux 5.18 now available with many improvements for AMD and Intel, and supports the Tesla FSD chip

Linux 5.18

How has the development been?, it was expected for May 22 and we have a new version of the kernel. Linus Torvalds has made official the launch of Linux 5.18, a version that has introduced many changes. In that sense, 5.18 is big, but the overall size or weight has had to fall within normal range for the launch to have taken place. As always, it introduces changes in the form of improved support, but there are two brands that will benefit more than the rest.

In Linux 5.18 several changes have been introduced that will improve support for AMD and Intel hardware. In addition, it will also support the Tesla FSD chip, FSD being the acronym for Full-Self Driving. In other words, Elon Musk's Teslas are now officially supported by the Linux kernel. It's also true that Torvalds and company don't do anything without a reason, so with Linux 5.18 onwards we could report news that Tesla has improved in some way.

Linux 5.18 Highlights

List created by Michael Larabel:

  • Processors:
    • Scheduler updates around NUMA balancing that can further improve the performance of AMD EPYC servers in particular.
    • Intel's Hardware Feedback Interface support has been merged with Intel's new "HFI" driver for this important feature of its hybrid processors.
    • Intel Software Defined Silicon has been merged for that controversial feature of Intel CPUs about allowing activation of additional Silicon features using cryptographically signed keys. Intel has not yet announced any products with SDSi, but it is believed to be on the way, although it is not yet clear what CPUs/features they may convert to a licensing model.
    • Intel Indirect Branch Tracking (IBT) has landed. This is part of the Intel Control-Flow Enforcement technology with Tiger Lake and newer CPUs to improve security.
    • Intel ENQCMD support has been re-enabled prior to Sapphire Rapids, after the code was previously disabled in the kernel due to being broken.
    • Improved AMD nested virtualization as well as around nested virtualization.
    • AMD is preparing new sound driver code for upcoming platforms.
    • More AMD EDAC preparations for Zen 4.
    • Intel PECI was eventually merged as Intel Platform Environment Control Interface for the interface between CPU and BMCs on server platforms.
    • Merged AMD HSMP driver for host system management port to access additional information on AMD server platforms.
    • The Intel Idle driver adds native support for Intel Xeon "Sapphire Rapids" CPUs.
    • The Intel P-State driver will now use the default EPP value exposed by firmware instead of using a hard-coded default EPP value up to this point.
    • Preparations for Intel IPI virtualization.
    • More AMD and Intel code unification.
    • CPUPower support for use with AMD's P-State driver which was introduced in Linux 5.17.
    • KVM now supports AMD virtual machines with up to 511 vCPUs where up to now only up to 255 vCPUs were possible for AMD systems.
    • RISC-V Sv57 virtual memory support for five-level page tables along with other CPU architecture enhancements for this royalty-free CPU ISA. Some of that other work includes RSEQ (Restartable Sequences) interface support and RISC-V CPU Idle support.
    • Support for Tesla's FSD chip has been built into this Samsung-based ARM SoC that uses the full self-driving computer of Tesla vehicles.
    • The Razperry Pi Zero 2 W is now compatible with the mainline Linux kernel.
    • Removal of Andes NDS32 CPU architecture code as that code is no longer maintained for that 32-bit AndesCore architecture used in various digital signal control and IoT applications.
  • GPU and Graphics:
    • AMDGPU FreeSync video mode is enabled by default compared to previous kernels that needed the AMDGPU module option to enable FreeSync video mode.
    • AMD has been preparing code for future/upcoming GPUs to be enabled on a block-by-block basis, so it's not particularly exciting at the moment in terms of leaks/revealing of new details.
    • CRIU support for the AMDKFD driver for check/restore capabilities of ROCm compute workloads is the primary goal.
    • Support for the Intel DG2-G12 subplatform as that new variant alongside the announced DG2/Alchemist G10 and G11 targets. There are also many other DG2/Alchemist discrete graphics works in general.
    • Intel Alder Lake N graphics support.
    • Faster FBDEV operations and more FBDEV driver fixes.
    • Support for ASpeed ​​AST2600 and other minor DRM driver changes.
  • Changes and additions of other hardware:
    • Improved sensor monitoring for new ASUS motherboards.
    • Increased enablement of Compute Express Link (CXL).
    • NVIDIA's Tegra video decoding driver has been promoted out of the rollout phase in the media subsystem.
    • New input drivers for Mediatek MT6779 keyboard and Imagis touch screens.
    • ACPI Platform Profile support now works correctly for AMD-powered ThinkPads.
    • More driver solutions for Android x86 tablets.
    • Continued improvements to Apple keyboard support.
    • A HID driver for keyboards with weird SigmaMicro ICs.
    • Razer HID driver for Razer keyboards/devices that are not fully HID compliant.
    • Lots of network updates, as always.
    • Fixing the thermal policy for some HP Omen laptops.
    • Intel Alder Lake "PS" audio support.
  • Storage and file systems:
    • ReiserFS has been deprecated and the file system driver is scheduled to be removed in 2025.
    • EXT4's quick commit feature should be faster and more scalable.
    • Two important changes in exFAT to allow endpoints in paths and stop erasing "VolumeDirty" as important to avoid artificially shortening the life of the storage device.
    • Underlying work on preparing read-only EROFS to support new features.
    • Ceph addresses "a pretty nasty problem" and makes other improvements.
    • More XFS improvements.
    • NFSD support for the NFSv4 birthtime file attribute for file creation times.
    • F2FS performance improvements.
    • Btrfs adds encrypted I/O support and faster fsync.
    • FSCRYPT adds direct I/O support for encrypted files.
    • New features and speed improvements of IO_uring.
    • Lots of block and NVMe optimizations, including endless work on more efficient I/O/lower overhead.
    • Intel Raptor Lake audio support.
  • Security:
    • 64-bit ARM now supports Shadow Call Stack (SCS).
    • The new random.trust_bootloader option is added along with other changes to the RNG, including some significant improvements to randomness led by Jason Donenfeld.
    • The Xen USB driver has been hardened against possible malicious hosts.
    • AVX acceleration for the SM3 crypto path along with various ARM optimizations in other parts of the crypto subsystem.
  • Other kernel events:
    • The x86/x86_64 defconfig builds now use -Werror by default to send compiler warnings as errors to help ensure better code quality.
    • More flexible handling of the LLVM/Clang compiler with support for postfixed version strings and support for LLVM/Clang when installed outside of the PATH.
    • The change in the whole tree to change from zero-length arrays to flexible array members.
    • The change from C89 to C11 for the target C language version.
    • DAMON adds the "DAMOS" sysfs configuration control interface.

Linux 5.18 has been released on the night of May 22, but what is available right now is its tarball and you have to install it manually. Both Linus Torvalds and the kernel maintainers recommend waiting until at least the first maintenance update for mass adoption.


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