If you're a gamer, you'll be thrilled with the latest Linux kernel, which now supports the Core Ultra Series 3 laptops. As well, machines spec’d with a Core Ultra Series 2 CPU, the Intel IPU7 driver adds support for the built-in webcam.

AMD hybrid GPUs did not miss out either, as SmartMux support has been added so it will automatically switch between integrated and discrete modes, based on the current workload.

To continue the gaming goodness, the Lenovo WMI gaming drivers have added support for Legion Go and the Legion Go S handheld gaming device.

Even more important, however, is the kernel's new ability to write zeros without I/O operations on NVMe SSDs. Only NVMe SSDs that support the DEAC bit and SCSI SSDs that support the UMMAP bit enjoy the new features.

The EXT 4 filesystem gets some improvement for block allocation stability, and Btrfs gets the new experimental large-folio support.

Other additions/improvements include mainline support for ASUS Zenbook A14 Snapdragon X1 Plus and Elite notebooks; mainline support for the Raspberry Pi 5 I/O chip; support for Corsair HX1200i PSU monitoring; and the addition of initial proxy execution support that can help prevent slowdowns when high-priority applications are waiting for a resource. This new addition should give a nice speed boost to apps running on Linux.

You can read more about the latest kernel in from the 6.17 merge window, part 1 and part 2.