Release Candidate 1 (RC1) has already been released. The Linux kernel 5.15 its development begins, and in a time its final version will arrive. In what can already be seen from the code contributions, it will be a huge leap that will especially benefit users with AMD Zen CPUs, as well as Apple's M1 SoC.
You can see some updates in the Realtek WiFi drivers, in the file systems, such as the NTFS provided by developer Paragon Software for the main branch of the Linux kernel, optimizations for XFS, EXT4, F2FS, and Btrfs, as well as other improvements and fixes, and better support for Apple's M1 SoC.
But this all falls short for what's moving around AMD in Linux kernel 5.15:
- For the desktop (Ryzen):
- Audio Driver Fusion for Van Gogh APU.
- Changes and fixes in the s2idle code for AMD for suspend and resume modes.
- Temperature monitoring support for AMD Zen 3 APUs.
- Temperature monitoring support for Yellow Carp APUs. These will arrive with the Ryzen 6000 series.
- C3 management optimized for AMD CPUs, which will improve power in idle state.
- For the server (EPYC):
- PTDMA driver has arrived, that is, for DMA Pass-Through for I / O copies and high-bandwidth memory for NTB devices.
- New SB-RMI controller. For remote administration on server platforms.
- AMD KVM now supports 5-tier paging to handle higher memory capacities.
- For graphics (Radeon):
- New IDs have been added for RDNA2-based GPU upgrades.
- AMD Cyan Skillfish support for an APU design with Navi that has yet to be released.
- AMDGPU now leverages VKMS to enhance its virtual display code.
- Power management fixes for AMDGPU controller, HDMI FreeSync, PCI Express link handling and others.