Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux kernel 6.17, an update that brings improved hardware support and a number of core system improvements.
The new kernel provides graphic drivers for the latest Intel ‘Panther Lake’ laptops, better power management features for devices with AMD hybrid GPUs, resolves a software bug that’s been knocking around since 1993, and helps SSDs last longer.
Announcing the release on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), Linus Torvalds says: “No huge surprises this past week, so here we are, with kernel 6.17 pushed out and ready to go.”
Ubuntu 25.10 ships wit the new kernel, including in the beta build that was released last week. Users on the current long-term support release, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, will receive kernel 6.17 as part of the next hardware enablement (HWE) update in early 2026.
Is this kernel a solid upgrade? You know it is! For a whip through the new features in Linux 6.17 which caught my eye, read on.
Linux 6.17: What’s New?
Graphics & Gaming
The first Core Ultra Series 3 laptops powered by Intel ‘Panther Lake’ chips are due to go on sale soon, so it’s timely that Intel Xe3 integrated graphics are enabled by default in Linux 6.17. This ensures anyone bagging a new model and installing Ubuntu 25.10 gets solid graphics performance off the bat.
SmartMux in 6.17 will switch between integrated and discrete graphics on AMD laptops
For those using laptops equipped with Core Ultra Series 2 (‘Lunar Lake’) chips, the Intel IPU7 driver has proper web camera support. Ideal for online meetings, social chats and accidental jump-scares when launching the camera app by accident.
AMD hybrid GPU laptops gain SmartMux support with Linux 6.17. This auto-switches between integrated and discrete graphics based on workload to (obviously) save power or deliver maximum performance if needed.
Lenovo WMI Gaming Series Drivers add support for both Legion Go and the SteamOS-powered Legion Go S handheld, which will be especially handy for those looking to run other kinds of Linux-based operating systems on the AMD-powered handheld.
The kernel also standardises the keycode used by the (mysterious) “performance boost” key on newer Dell and Alienware laptops, and the (rather frutiger aero-looking) Flydigi Apex 5 game controller now has proper support on Linux — nice!
On a tangentially gaming-related note, the networking stack adds DualPI2 congestion control support. This helps to reduce network queue latency, which should prove beneficial for online gaming, streaming, video calls, and other real-time applications.
Filesystem changes
There are many filesystems improvements in 6.17 that will be directly appreciable by those of us running a desktop Linux distribution (not just the one this site is named after, either).
Ubuntu’s default file system is EXT4, and Linux 6.17 sees major performance boosts
Perhaps most significant: the kernel can now write zeroes efficiently without actual I/O operations on NVMe SSDs that support the DEAC bit, and SCSI SSDs which support the UMMAP bit (a ‘bit’ is a kind of indicator of a feature state).
The FALLOC_FL_WRITE_ZEROES option for fallocate() will mark storage regions as zero-filled internally on modern SSDs. This will improve performance and reduce wear (SSDs theoretically have finite read/write lifespans, so fewer writes = lasts longer).
Ubuntu’s default filesystem EXT4 improves block allocation scalability. Per benchmarks, this provides noticeable performance benefits under I/O heavy tasks like querying databases or copying large numbers of files.
Btrfs adds experimental large-folio support, which reduces memory management overhead when handling large files. This, combined with compression control during defragmentation, makes Btrfs better suited to performance-sensitive workloads.
EROFS supports metadata compression and faster directory reading, which should prove especially handy on systems with read-only root filesystems or in container-heavy workloads. There’s no Bcachefs in the 6.17 merge reports…
Laptop Support
Linux support on M1 and M2 Macs continues to improve in Linux 6.17, with the Apple Silicon SMC driver enabling ‘proper’ rebooting of M1 and M2 Macs. With work to run Linux on M3 and M4 Macs in limbo, it’s nice earlier gens are improving their mainline support.
The Touch Bar on Intel-based MacBook Pros see further improvements in Linux 6.17 with patches to enable touch screen input, albeit with a few lingering quirks. Apple ends support for Intel-based Macs after macOS 26, so Linux will give those devices a new lease of life.
Elsewhere, Linux 6.17 brings mainline support for ASUS Zenbook A14 Snapdragon X1 Plus/Elite laptops, allowing more Linux distributions to run on these ARM-based Windows devices. There’s also mainline support for Raspberry Pi 5’s RP1 I/O chip.
Got a keyboard with F13-F24 keys? Those are now properly mapped in Linux 6.17
Support for Corsair HX1200i PSU monitoring (2025 model) is present; wake-on-touch support added to the Intel Touch Host Controller (along with overlay objects support, great for tablet and 2-in-1 users); and kernel mapping for F13 – F24 keys on PS/2 keyboards.
Yes, keyboards with an addition 12 function keys actually exist!
HD Audio support is extended to cover the Framework Laptop 13 with AMD Ryzen AI 300, commercial ASUS laptops using CS35L41 HDA, and HP EliteBook models. USB audio offloading (a feature in Linux 6.xx) covers more mobile devices, including Fairphone 4.
Core kernel changes
New Attack Vector Controls have been integrated to simplify security handling for known CPU vulnerabilities, such as Spectre and Meltdown. Previously, each mitigation had its own kernel command-line option. In 6.17, there’s a unified option.
Making it easier for Linux server admins (and others) to disable unneeded protections may help them claw back performance dips certain mitigations require as well make it easier to manage the growing number of hardware vulnerability bandaids.
Support for uniprocessor configuration has been removed from the kernel scheduler. Every machine, even those which run on a single-core processor will now ‘unconditionally’ run a kernel designed for multicore systems.
This shouldn’t lead to any detrimental impact on single-core systems (not that many folks likely run one full-time in 2025), but adopting a unified scheduling approach across all CPUs should reduce code and make kernel behaviour more reliable.
Speed Boosts?
Linux 6.17 picks up initial proxy execution support. This new kernel feature may speed up apps by preventing slowdowns when a high-priority application is waiting for a resource, the system temporarily gives the resource holder a boost, causing it to finish and release the resource faster.
A new kernel feature could speed up apps by preventing slowdowns when high-priority tasks are waiting for a resource
Or to word it the way kernel devs would, this resolves “priority-inversion problems” by enabling “high-priority tasks waiting for locks to donate execution context to lock holders”, which reduces latency spikes — slowdowns — in desktop apps.
Memory management sees various optimisations across the kernel subsystems, notable with improved futex performance for heavily threaded applications (and more reliable crash kernel handling for debugging when things go wrong).
AMD’s Hardware Feedback Interface (HFI) was added. Modern processors mix two types of cores: performance and efficiency. On AMD, HFI gives the kernel info to help it decide which core is better suited to which tasks, improving performance and power management.
Weird Stuff
Linux 6.17 removes the Pktcdvd packet-writing optical driver. It was deprecated in 2016, survived a removal attempt in 2023, but now, in 2025 optical packet-writing is definitively done and dusted! A loss for those who liked it, but a curio for those who’d never heard of it…
There’s also a bug fix for a kernel limitation dating back to 1993. It’s related to ELF program header handling that causes some applications in certain conditions to bug out. After 30 years, someone has finally bothered to fix it properly.
Other Changes:
Beyond the highlights above, some other notable changes in Linux 6.17:
- BPF subsystem adds standard string operations
- BPF programs have output and error streams for userspace communication
- Extended attributes support for pidfds
- New DAMON_STAT kernel module for simplified memory activity monitoring
- TCP stack now enforces receive window limits more strictly
- ASoC adds AMD ACP7.2 platform support
- Kernel live patch support on 64-bit ARM
- Turbostat utility gains L3 cache topology display
For more detail on the release as whole read through the comprehensive merge report recaps (first half & second half) put out by the folks at LWN, or sift through the thousands of kernel commits on GitHub (grab a coffee before doing that, eh).
Upgrade to Linux 6.17
Linux 6.17 is available for download from kernel.org as source, but you will need to compile that source code by hand to make use of it — not for the faint of heart!
Ubuntu 25.10 includes Linux 6.17 by default, and the release will be back-ported to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS users in early 2026.
It will not be packaged for and uploaded to Ubuntu repositories for other supported releases officially, but it is possible to make use of Canonical Mainline DEBs or third-party PPAs unofficially — not without caveats, however.
Installing newer Linux kernels on Ubuntu from outside of the main repos comes with no guarantees and no support. They may lack Ubuntu-specific patches and drivers, not work in with some hardware or lack feature integrations.