The Linux 6.4 kernel has been officially released. This update brings many improvements, such as initial support for Apple’s M2 chip, improved storage performance, improved sensor monitoring, and more Rust code. While this isn’t a major upgrade for the average user, it’s a release worth looking at for those who want to take advantage of better hardware/software support.
It’s worth noting that this is a non-LTS release, so not everyone needs to upgrade to this release unless they have specific issues that this kernel release solves.
This update improves the following:
Initial support for Apple's M2 chip
Improvements in sensor monitoring
AMD P-State Boot Autonomous Mode
Improved storage performanceInitial support for Apple’s M2 chip
The Linux 6.4 kernel provides initial support for Apple’s M2 system-on-a-chip (SoC) and adds device tree files for current MacBook Air, Pro, and Mac Mini systems. But there are still some problems, such as the inability to display output on the Apple M2 Mac Mini, and the lack of support for the keyboard and touchpad of the new Apple laptop, and we can expect that these problems will be better resolved when the Linux 6.5 kernel arrives.
Improvements in sensor monitoring
Similar to the previous kernel version, the Linux 6.4 kernel provides sensor monitoring capabilities for more than 100 ASUS motherboards, including both Intel and AMD platforms. PRIME, ROG, TUF, Pro, ProArt and other series are all supported.
AMD P-State Boot Autonomous Mode
After much effort, AMD Boot Autonomous Mode has finally been integrated into the Linux kernel, which brings better performance and power efficiency to AMD EPYC and AMD Ryzen processors.
Improved storage performance
The Linux 6.4 kernel also brings a number of storage improvements, including:
The EROFS filesystem has been optimized to now allow subpage block support, which matches well with the AArch64 architecture.
Various performance optimizations for the EXT4 file system, and some minor tweaks for the NTFS file system, now remove the “No Access Rules” option.
Also, the Btrfs and F2FS filesystems have received some very nice enhancements, bringing performance improvements for different usage scenarios
Other improvements and fixes
It is noticed that in addition to the improvements mentioned above, there are some changes worth mentioning, such as:
- Support Intel linear address mask function.
- Discontinued support for Intel Thunder Bay.
- Various optimizations for LoongArch.
- Support for Intel Lunar Lake HD Audio.
- Improved performance of VDUSE.
