Linux 5.14 Release – Main changes, Arm, MIPS, and RISC-V architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced Linux 5.14 release which happens to almost coincide with the anniversary of the initial announcement of the “small” project on August 25, 1991, about 30 years ago. Here’s Linux 5.14’s announcement:

So I realize you must all still be busy with all the galas and fancy balls and all the other 30th anniversary events, but at some point you must be getting tired of the constant glitz, the fireworks, and the champagne. That ball gown or tailcoat isn’t the most comfortable thing, either. The celebrations will go on for a few more weeks yet, but you all may just need a breather from them.

And when that happens, I have just the thing for you – a new kernel release to test and enjoy. Because 5.14 is out there, just waiting for you to kick the tires and remind yourself what all the festivities are about.

Of course, the poor tireless kernel maintainers won’t have time for the festivities, because for them, this just means that the merge window will start tomorrow. We have another 30 years to look forward to, after all. But for the rest of you, take a breather, build a kernel, test it out, and then you can go back to the seemingly endless party that I’m sure you just crawled out of.

Linus

Linux 5.13 was released about two months ago with preparatory work to support the Apple M1 processor, some security improvements with the Landlock security module and control-flow integrity for the kernel, support for incoming AMD and Intel graphics chips, and more.

Some interesting updates to Linux 5.14 include:

• Implementation of the core scheduling functionality, which provides control over which processes can share a core, has been merged. Core scheduling can be used as a defense against some Spectre vulnerabilities, as well as other use cases
• Removal of the old IDE block drivers. But that does not do mean legacy IDE hard drives are not supported any, as this can be handled by the libata subsystem
• Raspberry Pi 400 Keyboard PC gets mainline support
• Some progress for upcoming Intel Alder Lake processors including support for Intel Alder Lake P graphics

Arm changes in Linux 5.14

Besides supports for Raspberry Pi 400, there were many other changes as one would have come to expect.

• Arm64 – pointer authentication can now be configured independently for kernel and user space.
• Allwinner
  • V3s – I2S, Audio Codec, DMA, PWM
  • A64 – Bluetooth Audio on the Pinephone
  • A64 and R40 – Add A10-like timers
  • New devices – Forlinx OKA40i-C, NanoPi R1S H5 boards
• Rockchip
  • Hantro Video codecs for RK3036/3066/3188/322x
  • RK3568 – Power domains support + DT binding updates, cleanups.
  • RV1126 – SPI driver
  • Added USB PHY for RK3308
  • PCIe controller driver –  Register IRQ handlers after device and data are ready
  • Add support for Rockchip RK817 audio codec
  • New board – RK3568 EVB
• Amlogic
  • Clock driver changes
  • ARM64 DT changed for Linux 5.14:
    • Set 128bytes FIFO size on uart A
    • meson-sm1: add toacodec node to use internal audio DAC
    • Enable HDMI audio loopback on VIM3 board
  • New device – Banana Pi BPI-M5
• Samsung
  • defconfig changes
    • Enable Exynos Universal Flash Storage (UFS) driver for Exynos7 arm64
      boards.
    • Restore framebuffer support in exynos_defconfig.
  • DTS ARM changes for Linux 5.14
    • Several cleanups and alignment with dtschema. This includes removal
      of unused properties and fixing LED brightness property.
    • Enable PMIC RTC interrupt as a wakeup source (intended to wakeup for
      example from Suspend to RAM where the PMIC RTC’s power is still
      supplied).
    •  Disable unused/not implemented camera on GT-I9100
• Qualcomm
  • Amend socinfo with more SoC/PMIC details, including support for MSM8226, MDM9607, SM6125 and SC8180X.
  • SM8150/8250 enhancements and support for Sony Xperia 1/1II and
    5/5II
  • Add support for Qualcomm PMI8994 WLED Backlight
  • Add support for Qualcomm PM8008 PMIC
  • Pintrl
    • Added  SM6125 SoC pin control driver.
    • Qualcomm spmi-gpio support for PM7325.
    • Qualcomm spmi-mpp also handles PMI8994 (just a compatible string)
  • Clock driver – Qualcomm MDM9607 GCC, Qualcomm SC8180X display clks, Qualcomm SM6125 GCC, Qualcomm SM8250 CAMCC (camera)
  • Networking
    • WiFi – Qualcomm QCN9074 and WCN6855 PCI devices
    • Mobile – Support for Qualcomm MSM8998 (ipa)
  • PCIe PHY for Qualcomm IPQ60xx, Qualcomm SDX55
  • ARM64 DT updates
    • MSM8916 gains new support for Huawei Ascend G7, with NFC, sensors and touchscreen. The Samsung Galaxy A3/A5 gains battery support, touch keys, NFC.
    • MSM8996 received more cleanup and refactoring, preparing for upcoming new devices.
    • SC7180 continues to stabilize, with a range of small fixes for various
      bits and pieces, and new revisions for the CoachZ and pompom devices.
    • SC7280 continues to grow, with more clock controllers, thermal sensors, thermal zones, CPUfreq and interconnect providers.
    • Xiaomi Poco F1 gaines audio support and the OnePlus 6/6T gaines IPA
      support.
    • SM8350 gains some cleanups and the IPA device is enabled.
  • ARM64 defconfig updates enable VADC, audio codecs and Venus (video decoder) found on MSM8916 among others and the SM8350 interconnect provider driver
  • DTS updated for Linux 5.14. – adds DMA, NAND controllers, USB controller and PHY, RPM, L2CC, thermal sensors and defines thermal zones.
  • New devices & boards
    • SA8155p Automotive platform (SM8150 derivative)
    • Microsoft Surface Duo (SM8150-based), Huawei Ascend G7.
    • IPQ8074 gained support for the HK10 board.
• MediaTek
  • Mediatek MT8365 SoC pin controller
  • Device tree – MT8167, new Chromebook system variants for MT8183
  • DRM Next for Linux 5.14
    • Add MT8167 HDMI support
    • Fix PM reference leak
    • Add MT8183 DPI dual-edge support
  • Panfrost support on Mediatek MT8183.  support + DT bindings
  • Regulator driver – Mediatek MT6359 and MT6359P
  • New boards & devices –
• Other new Arm hardware platforms and SoCs
  • Broadcom – Raspberry Pi 400
  • NXP – i.MX8MM Gateworks GW7901 board, i.MX6Q DaSheng COM-9XX SBC board, i.MX28 based XEA board, GE B1x5v2 boards
  • Renesas – RZ/G2L SoC and EVK added

MIPS changelog for Linux 5.14

Summary of changes for the MIPS architecture:

• Add support for OpeneEmbed SOM9331 board
• Ingenic fixes/improvments, notably for MIPS Creator CI20 board
• Other fixes and cleanups on Loongsoon, OCTEON, and the generic MIPS architecture

RISC-V updates in Linux 5.14

Main changes for RISC-V listed in the changelog:

• Support for transparent huge pages.
• Support for generic PCI resources mapping.
• Support for the mem= kernel parameter.
• Support for KFENCE.
• A handful of fixes to avoid W+X mappings in the kernel.
• Support for VMAP_STACK based overflow detection.
• An optimized copy_{to,from}_user”

Check out the full Linux 5.14 changelog  with comments only,  generated with the command git log v5.13..v5.14-rc7 --stat. In a few days, you should also be able to check the changelog on KernelNewbies website.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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