Incoming! Linux 4.1 kernel lands

The 4.1 release of the Linux kernel has hit, after what Linus Torvalds says was a “very quiet week” since Release Candidate 8 dropped.

Torvalds' brief announcement on the Linux Kernel mailing list also notes that “this obviously means that the merge window for 4.2 is open”.

Since the last release candidate, Torvalds notes, the main fixes have been in drivers, listing “HDA sound, drm, scsi target, crypto” and “a couple of small misc fixes”.

Power consumption and performance headline the release. Phoronix had already noted both of these in tests of the release candidate (its summary of the release is here).

Intel Cherry Trail and Bay Trail chips get better performance and power consumption, as well as devices like Chipzilla's Compute Stick, and ARM power improvements.

Google has tossed some code into the release that provides filesystem-level encryption support for EXT4, there's some goodies for gaming (better force feedback in the Logitech lg4ff driver, and Xbox One controller support in Rumble).

Realtek 8723A, 8723B, 8751A and 8821 WiFi is also supported in the new kernel.

Phoronix also notes that MD RAID's RAID 5/6 support is improved, Noveau gets native GeForce GTX 750 acceleration support, and Radeon's DisplayPort MST is supported. ®