Jakub Kicinski on Sunday sent out the big set of networking subsystem updates heading into the Linux 6.17 kernel. From high-end enterprise and data center hardware down to consumer Ethernet and WiFi devices, the Linux networking space continues to be as busy as ever.

In going through the hundreds of new networking patches for the Linux 6.17 merge window, some of the most interesting wired and wireless networking changes for this next kernel release include:

- Various ongoing work around WiFI 7 and Extremely High Throughput (

With the Linux 6.17 merge window now open, Bcachefs file-system lead developer Kent Overstreet has submitted his planned changes for this next kernel version. But we await to see how Linus Torvalds will respond.

Linus Torvalds wrote on the Linux kernel mailing list one month ago that the upstream kernel and Bcachefs would be "parting ways" in Linux 6.17 after being upset with Bcachefs feature code being submitted routinely post-merge-window. Torvalds so far hasn't clarified if he intends to remove

Last year Canonical established a policy to always ship the latest Linux kernel version at Ubuntu release time which for the upcoming Ubuntu 25.10 will mean shipping with Linux v6.17 . But during the Ubuntu development cycles they typically don't aggressively update to new interim versions tracking upstream, except that will now change to allow for better kernel test coverage.

Ubuntu releases during development have typically stuck to the kernel version of prior Ubuntu releases until they are ready to transition to their intended kernel version for release

While the Broadcom V3D driver has been part of the mainline kernel for supporting the graphics found on recent Raspberry Pi boards, currently it doesn't support run-time power management. The lack of runtime PM has meant the GPU clock remains at full-speed even while idle.

Maíra Canal of Igalia posted a patch series today implementing run-time power management for the V3D DRM driver to benefit Raspberry Pi single board computers. Canal explained with the patch cover letter:

"This series introduces

Intel's accelerator efforts in recent generations of Xeon processors have been challenging to say the least. From limited software support and configuration obstacles to some current-generation accelerators not being safe for VM use due to security issues to having to deal with higher latency and other nuances if wanting to achieve decent performance. One of the Linux kernel users of Intel's QuickAssist Technology "QAT" accelerators has been the FSCRYPT code for native file encryption support. But the Linux kernel with the FSCRYPT usage is now demoting the Intel QAT

The open-source, reverse-engineered Rockchip NPU driver "Rocket" developed by Tomeu Vizoso will soon be in the mainline kernel. The Rocket Gallium3D driver was also merged today for Mesa 25.3 in the user-space code for their AI accelerator support.

Tomeu Vizoso for the past year and a half has been working on an open-source Rockchip NPU driver and finally all the bits are ready for going mainline. The kernel accelerator "accel" driver was recently queued into the DRM-Misc

Among the number of early pull requests submitted in advance for the Linux 6.17 merge window were all the power management updates as well as to related areas like ACPI and thermal control drivers.

Linux power management subsystem maintainer and Intel engineer Rafael Wysocki has all of the new power code ready for the Linux 6.17 cycle. There is support for upcoming Intel processors added to different drivers and continued work around async suspend and resume support for Linux drivers. Plus various fixes and many smaller changes.

The Linux 6

For the past two years Ubuntu developers have been talking about adding TPM-based full disk encryption to the installer for those wanting to leverage their system's Trusted Platform Module 2.0 capabilities to enhance security. It looks like for Ubuntu 25.10 this October that support will finally be in good shape.

Canonical engineers have been working toward being able to optionally leverage the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to enhance full disk encryption (FDE) security with their modern Ubuntu desktop installer. They are under pressure