Linux 7.0-rc1 has been officially released and brings with it a boatload of new features and changes. Phoronix reports that the new kernel is focused on preparing for upcoming AMD and Intel hardware, including Nova Lake and Zen 6. Since this kernel is bleeding edge, don't expect every distro to adopt it immediately, however it is expected that the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Fedora 44 will be some of the first Linux distros to upgrade to Linux 7.0.
Beyond these major updates, the changelog for Linux kernel 7.0 is massive. On the CPU side alone, enablement work has been done to get Nova Lake, Diamond Rapids, and Zen 6 chips operational on Linux 7.0. Intel TSX is now tuned to auto mode to boost performance on newer Intel CPUs. DSA 3.0 accelerators are now included in Linux 7.0 to offload appropriate tasks to dedicated silicon on newer Xeon chips. Turbostat — a command-line hardware monitoring tool — now reports L2 cache stats for newer Intel CPUs. NTB driver support and performance events support have been added for Diamond Rapids Xeon CPUs. LPSS driver and sound support have been added for Nova Lake chips.
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