Linux 7.4-rc1 is out on schedule, capping the Linux 7.4 merge window even with Linus Torvalds having been on holiday. The release avoided a possible week delay that Torvalds had discussed in the v7.3 announcement. If the cycle stays on time, Linux 7.4 has good chances of being released before the end of December and is likely to become this year's Long Term Support kernel, assuming no late delays drag it out.
The kernel includes AMD PerfOpt for Radeon iGPUs to help enhance AI/LLM performance, AMD Ryzen Zen 6 support being squared away ahead of next-gen client CPUs, many laptop quirks and additions, AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 enabled by default, Intel IPU8 support for upcoming Nova Lake laptops, and more Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 laptop enablement.
Other changes include optional buffered IOmap support for EXT4, basic Apple M4 support enablement that is not yet ready for end users, Google Tensor G5 SoC and Pixel 10 device support in the mainline kernel, and faster kernel build times.
The merge window had the most commits ever, with AI playing a large part in driving the upward trajectory in commit and patch counts. A feature overview and Linux 7.4 kernel benchmarking are expected to follow.
Sources: Phoronix.