Although Linux 6.1 is still accepting contributions, we can already look forward to various interesting features, such as hardware tests and wifi security fixes.
Recently, five new vulnerabilities regarding Linux’s Wi-Fi control have been identified, which will be fixed in the upcoming kernel 6.1. The list includes CVE-2022-42719 (kernels 5.2 to 5.19), CVE-2022-42720 and CVE-2022-42721 (both 5.1 to 5.19), CVE-2022-41674 (kernels up to 5.19) and CVE-2022-42722 (5.8 to 5.19). Now that the issues are public, the fixes will surely be backported to older Linux kernel versions employed among various enterprise distros.
Another new patch will display the processor and core number along with the socket in case of a segfault error in a program. The patch’s notes clarify it isn’t a perfect analysis, as the faulty program may have been rescheduled into another core between the fault occurring and the message appearing. Nevertheless, the update could be helpful when troubleshooting CPU cores.
Linux kernel 6.1 updates
Linux kernel 6.1 also improves support for Intel’s new Gaudi2 AI accelerator chip. Furthermore, China’s LoongArch processors — which received initial kernel support in version 5.19 and PCI bus support 6.0 — now gain additional support for UEFI boot and laptop motherboards, among other features.
It’s hard to obtain them outside China due to their competitive performance, but Loongson hardware definitely does exist.
Support for the fwserial driver will be removed. The driver allows serial connections through FireWire. In its time, FireWire was quite a helpful interface that was robustly endorsed by Sony and Apple. However, Mac no longer used it, and the interface was replaced with USB 3 and Thunderbolt.
Another change is that the Linux kernel can no longer be compiled with the Intel C Compiler, ICC. Linux used to be compilable with GCC, LLVM/Clang and Intel’s own compilers. However, as Intel is moving its compilers to the basis of LLVM, they will no longer be supported.
8 hours ago
