AI-enriched Linux 7.2 delivers cache-aware scheduling - here's everything new
Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.
ZDNET's key takeaways
- The latest Linux kernel incorporates many AI fixes.
- Cache-aware scheduling will speed up processing.
- The latest kernel boasts other improvements.
Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux kernel 7.2 over the weekend. He wrote, "This last week of the release was -- once again -- bigger than I would have wished for, but hey, with the whole 'new normal' thing, if I delayed releases for that reason, we'd probably never have a release at all."
AI and Linux development
"New normal," you ask? He explained this earlier in his note about Linux 7.2's seventh release candidate. "I can't say that I'm exactly thrilled about the size of this all. But it is what it is: the new normal with a lot of fixes, many of them due to review by various AI tools."
These changes -- which are largely not new features written by AI, but patches to AI-discovered security vulnerabilities --add up.
Also: 'I'm not a programmer' anymore: Linus Torvalds on the only two tools he uses now
Before the release of the 7.1 Linux kernel, Torvalds had said, "The continued flood of AI reports has basically made the security list almost entirely unmanageable, with enormous duplication due to different people finding the same things with the same tools. People spend all their time just forwarding things to the right people or saying 'that was already fixed a week/month ago.'"
He continued:
"This is all entirely pointless churn, and we're making it clear that AI-detected bugs are pretty much by definition not secret, and treating them on some private list is a waste of time for everybody involved - and only makes that duplication worse because the reporters can't even see each other's reports."
That's not to say Torvalds is against using AI. Torvalds has noted that "AI tools are great, but only if they actually help, rather than cause unnecessary pain and pointless make-believe work. Feel free to use them, but use them in a way that is productive and makes for a better experience."
Cache aware scheduling
Unless you live on Linux's bleeding edge, you're unlikely to see these features until the release of fall Linux distros, such as Ubuntu 26.10. Even then, most of the updates will show their best advantage on computers with complex CPU-cache layouts, newer graphics and mobile hardware, and storage-intensive workloads.
The marquee addition is Cache Aware Scheduling, a new cache scheduling program that's been in the works for several years. Torvalds again: "The goal of the patch series is to aggregate tasks sharing data to the same LLC cache domain, thereby reducing cache bouncing and cache misses, and improving data access efficiency."
Also: After 30 years with Linux, here's my way of convincing Windows users to switch
Previously, the scheduler balanced load across your CPU's cores without checking whether threads on separate cores shared memory. This meant threads on different cores would re-fetch the same data. This led to cache bouncing, where your system wasted time and resources pulling and re-pulling the same data. Now, the process is much cleaner and less wasteful.
The code includes guardrails to avoid overloading a cache domain. It also avoids further thread movement when a process already consumes more than 25% of CPU time or more than one-third of a domain's load. Workloads such as multithreaded servers, AI and ML compute jobs, and some games will benefit the most from this improvement.
Other new Linux features
As usual, there are new and improved drivers. Foremost among these is initial AMDGPU support for HDMI 2.1 Fixed Rate Link (FRL). This new HDMI technology enables you to view uncompressed 4K at 120Hz and 8K videos. You'll also see I/O speed improvements with both AMD and Intel processers.
On the subject of I/O, Btrfs large folios have finally left experimental status and become enabled by default. In practice, this means 15% improvements in sequential writes.
At the same time, experimental folios up to 2 MB have also been introduced. The release continues I/O-map conversion work for ext4 and XFS, while exFAT gains changes intended to improve large-file performance.
Also: I used OpenFactory to build my own Linux distro overnight - this AI tool is going to be big
Windows NTFS handling in Linux 7.2 has also been improved, and some minor bugs have been fixed. ExFAT, the commonly used format on SD cards and USB sticks, is now using the kernel's iomap. This will improve the read and write speed on these devices by as much as 87%, and make running a Linux distro from a USB drive much faster.
The new kernel also adds Intel-developed USB4STREAM protocol support, enabling raw host-to-host streaming over USB4/Thunderbolt links. In practice, this is a "super simple" way to "basically just transfer raw packets from one host to another." This can be useful for quickly backing up a system from one host to another, sharing web cameras or other peripherals across systems while avoiding the traditional Linux networking stack.
While we're mentioning networking, this release adds Wi-Fi Aware and early Wi-Fi 8/UHR groundwork. Wi-Fi Aware enables device-to-device Wi-Fi connections without the need for a traditional network infrastructure. You can think of this as Apple AirDrop on steroids.
Finally, there was one significant rollback. Late testing revealed a performance regression with a "fairer" GPU scheduler approach on some AMD graphics configurations. Linux 7.2 therefore reverts to FIFO scheduling rather than shipping the change.
Linux 7.2 ready to run
All in all, the new Linux kernel may not garner many headlines, but it's a significant step forward, especially in file system and networking performance improvements.
Also: I tried ArchEZ to see if it really makes Arch Linux easy for beginners - and it delivered
The Linux 7.2 source is available now, but most users should wait for their distribution's kernel packages and validation process. That is especially sensible on production systems, where third-party kernel modules, drivers, secure-boot policies, and vendor certification lag behind.
If you aren't comfortable compiling your own kernel but still want to jump in as fast as possible, Arch Linux is the likeliest major distro to release a version with 7.2, with Fedora Rawhide, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Gentoo close behind.