On a Windows computer, if you want to add support for a new piece of hardware, you install some drivers. On Linux, things are a little bit different, usually the drivers come included in the Linux kernel and if you have a newer piece of hardware then you typically have to wait until support is added to a later kernel.
On Sunday, Linus Torvalds announced the availability of the seventh release candidate of the upcoming Linux 6.9 kernel. He said that things look very normal and that most of the changes are to drivers, particularly sound, DRM, and subsystems like USB and networking.
Outside of drivers, Torvalds said that changes mostly affected filesystems, architectures (mostly x86), documentation, small core networking fixes, and some selftests.
According to Phoronix, this “very normal” appraisal by Torvalds could suggest that we get the final release of Linux 6.9 next week rather than having to go to an eighth release candidate but it’s always possible to go the second route if any big issues crop up.
While it may be late in the Linux 6.9 cycle, it doesn’t mean new features aren’t being added. Owners of the ASUS ROG Raikiri controller will be able to use that Xbox / PC controller with Linux 6.9-rc7+ after support was just added. There is also better support for the upcoming Lunar Lake platform too.
It will depend on which Linux distribution you run as to when you will get the Linux 6.9 update. Those on bleeding edge rolling distros based on Arch should see it first followed by cutting edge non-rolling release distros like Fedora. It’s unclear if Ubuntu LTS will get it through a hardware enablement update later on.
Let us know in the comments if you will be attempting to upgrade to this kernel or whether you'll remain on the one provided out of the box by your distribution.
Source: Kernel.org via Phoronix and Phoronix
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