Linux Kernel 7.2 Has Been Officially Released with Many New Features

Linux Kernel version 7.2 has been officially released, bringing a host of new features to the open-source operating system. Among the highlights are cache-aware load-balancing support, initial HDMI 2.1 Full Rate Line Rate (FRL) support for AMDGPU driver, and management of ACPI notify handlers using devres-based approach. The initial support for CRI platform in Intel Xe driver and Rust support for IBM System/390 (S/390) architecture are also part of the release.

One of the most notable additions is the implementation of a Fair(er) GPU scheduler, enabling improved resource allocation for graphics processing. The kernel now supports the zerocopy library, enhancing memory manipulation capabilities in Rust. New hardware capabilities, such as hwcaps for the 2025 dpISA extensions on AArch64 (ARM64) architecture, have been added. Additionally, the default large folios are now enabled for the Btrfs file system.

The release includes several enhancements to the kernel's swap subsystem, support for multi-size transparent huge pages (mTHPs) in khugepaged kernel thread, and ability to handle compressed files on SMB filesystem. Furthermore, Linux 7.2 improves the previously introduced NTFS filesystem in kernel 7.1, adding devicetree updates for 64-bit NXP/Freescale and Qualcomm platforms, and introduces Multiple Protocol Traffic Control Protocol (MPTCP) signaling support for IPv6 addresses.

Networking improvements include GRO/GSO support for PPPoE and support for Intel Trusted Domain Extensions (TDX) feature. The KVM subsystem has received support for AMD's guest-mode execution trap and Intel's mode-based execution control (MBEC) features. NFS file system's default block size has been increased to 4MB on systems with at least 16GB RAM. The release also adds support for Intel's Trusted Domain Extensions (TDX) feature.