Linux Kernel 6.14 has arrived, bringing a clutch of changes to make your computer run more efficiently and more securely than before.
Interestingly, Linux 6.14 is one the smallest kernel updates in terms of commits (not lines of code) for some time. It is also the kernel version that will be included in Ubuntu 25.04, released next month.
Announcing the promotion to stable on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) Linus Torvalds explains why this release has landed a day later than expected
“So it’s early Monday morning (well – early for me, I’m not really a morning person), and I’d love to have some good excuse for why I didn’t do the 6.14 release yesterday on my regular Sunday afternoon release schedule,” he writes.
“I’d like to say that some important last-minute thing came up and delayed things. But no. It’s just pure incompetence.”
I think we all relate to that, right?
Anyway, for a breeze-through the notable highlights this kernel uplift provides, keep scrolling!
Linux 6.14: New Features
When I recap kernel releases I tend to gloss basic bring up for new CPUs and GPUs which are as-yet unreleased or in very early stages of development. It’s not that such work isn’t important, more that it’s a given and doesn’t impact most end-users yet.
Thus, you can take it as read that the next-generation of Intel and AMD CPUs and GPUs continue to see basic parts plumbed in and/or fine-tuned as their journey to full Linux support continues – by the time they hit the market, they will work OOTB!
Faster Gaming
For many, the most impactful feature of Linux kernel 6.14 is the addition of a new ‘NT synchronization’ primitive driver (ntsync) aimed at improving the performance of Windows games on Linux running through Wine (and related tech stacks).
It provides Windows NT-style locking primitives in a new kernel interface, supplanting Wine’s built-in current ‘interprocess-communication’ approach which can, for many games on certain hardware, be slower and thus impact gaming performance.
What is most impressive about the driver is the performance boosts it reportedly delivers: many games saw improved frame rates of 50 – 150 percent, per the driver patch’s author, Elizabeth Figura.
Performance Boosts
It’s not just Linux gamers benefitting from better performance as Linux 6.14 includes a crop of changes delivering speed buffs to various areas.
Among which is a new fsnotify event, FS_PRE_ACCESS. This allows the kernel to notify userspace before file contents are accessed, then wait for a reply before proceeding — effectively enabling on-demand file content loading from slow storage.
That change could help bolster performance for tasks and apps that rely on accessing sizeable datasets stored remotely.
Linux 6.14 includes a crop of changes bringing speed buffs to key areas
GPU workload protection through cgroups was also merged. This prevents important GPU tasks from being terminated by properly ‘accounting’ GPU and CPU memory to the correct cgroup. This enables multiple GPU workloads to run concurrently without any undue snags.
Support for uncached buffered I/O is another key Linux 6.14 feature that may add some pep to workloads by resolving issues where fast storage devices can quickly fill available RAM with unnecessary cached data.
To do this, it allows apps to read/write data while automatically dropping the pages from the page cache after operations complete – net result: faster response.
Changes to the Resource Control (resctrl) code extend memory bandwidth monitoring tools by allowing total memory bandwidth monitoring to accommodate “systems which support only total but not local memory bandwidth monitoring.”
And a scheduler fix reduces the cost of the sched_move_task function when the autogroup feature is enabled, resulting in a over a 50% performance improvement for workloads frequently calling the function.
Rounding out the performance side, io-uring support is available to FUSE filesystem operations, reducing friction between kernel and userspace. Apps making heavy use of FUSE filesystems (like cloud storage mounts or containers) should see a noticeable uptick in performance.
Intel GPU Buffs
The Intel graphics driver updates for Linux 6.14 offer plenty of improvement desktop Linux users stand to benefit from.
There are fixes and buffs to address power issues when pairing Intel Arc Alchemist (DG2) graphics cards with various Intel CPUs generations, including Alder Lake, Comet Lake, and Kaby Lake, mainly around power state management and reduced idle power consumption.
And Linux 6.14 adds Ultra-High Bit Rate (UHBR) modes for DisplayPort over Thunderbolt on Panther Lake platforms paired with Xe3 integrated graphics — but the first Panther Lake chips aren’t due for release until 2026.
It’s not only the latest GPUs befitting as some minor housekeeping for integrated graphics on old Intel Haswell era CPUs got merged in this release that will keep old machines ticking over nicely.
New AMD NPU Driver
Linux 6.14 features a new AMD XDNA driver for AMD NPUs (Neural Processing Unit) integrated into new and upcoming AMD chips.
NPUs are becoming a common co-companion in desktop and laptop chips to power and aid on-device machine learning tasks and apps, like LLMs, etc., and mainline kernel support is becoming an increasingly important focus for it.
Linux 6.14 takes a leap forward in that area.
AMD Power Savings
Several changes to the AMD P-State driver are in Linux kernel 6.14 but it’s the decision to default to differing Energy Performance Policy (EPP) settings on AMD Ryzen and EPYC processors that most users will benefit from. The former is now set to ‘balance_performance’.
AMD P-State driver tweak reduces power consumption on Ryzen laptops
The result? Sizeable energy savings.
Defaulting to a balanced profile on Ryzen used 50% fewer watts when playing a 1080p YouTube video (with HW acceleration on) at 7W vs 14W respectively (thanks to a lower CPU frequency) plus 20ºC lower temp and reduced fan noise.
Those stats will vary based on tasks and devices, but for users of laptops with AMD Ryzen processors, the net-benefit is worth the switch. Most Linux distributions (including Ubuntu) ship with power mode tools that let you bump to performance mode when you need it.
Script Security
We (hopefully)all know executing scripts has potential security risks, and that the kernel contains built-in mechanisms to help mitigate.
To bolster those, Linux 6.14 ensures the same security check (AT_EXECVE_CHECK) applies whether scripts are executed directly (./script.sh) or indirectly (sh script.sh).
While two new ‘security bits’ aid in this: one restricting file execution permissions, the other preventing interpreters from running interactive code not stored in executable files.
ARM & RISC-V
Linux 6.14 kernel allows VirtualBox guest drivers to be built for ARM64 Linux VMs. Previously, it only supported building them for Intel-based systems. This change will certainly help anyone running ARM64 Linux VMs on ARM64 hosts, such as Apple Silicon.
There’s initial work to support the Blaize BLZ P1600 AI SoC family, which has custom GSP (Graph Streaming Processor) cores offering up to 16 TOPS, and a pair of Cortex-A53 cores able to run an OS. It’s available as a PCIe accelerator board or run standalone.
On the RISC-V side, Linux 6.14 adds initial support for the SpacemiT K1. This 64-bit RISC-V chip with eight RVA22-compatible CPU cores may sound familiar as it’s the one used in the Ubuntu-powered RISC-V tablet from DeepComputing.
While mainline Linux 6.14 support for the SpacemiT K1 series isn’t feature-complete, it’s a fair way there as of this release and will allow other developers to join in to help build out, expand, and fine-tune performance on the hardware.
Hardware & Devices Support
Microsoft’s push to get PC makers to physical “Copilot” keys to devices means the Linux kernel needs to accommodate it, which Linux 6.14 duly does.
A mapping for the Microsoft Copilot keyboard key has been added (KEY_F23).
It will be up to Linux distribution makers and/or users to choose what happens when the Copilot key is pressed under Linux. With few distros currently integrating or shipping any AI-assistant type features, the choices given by an extra key are myriad.
The xpad driver in Linux 6.14 now supports unofficial Xbox 360 wireless receiver clones.
Since Microsoft no longer manufacture ‘official’ versions, users with OG controllers can continue to use them with replacement receivers, cutting down on e-waste.
Sticking with Xbox controllers, Linux kernel 6.14 adds support for both the Nacon Evol-X Xbox One Controller* and the Nacon Pro Compact*. Anyone with either of those laying around to use with their Xbox One/S console can now use ’em for gaming on Linux!
Other devices supported or improved in this new kernel release:
- SteelSeries Arctis 9 wireless gaming headset
- Nintendo Switch 6-button Sega controller
- Wooting Two He analog keyboard
- Positivo C6400 headset mic now works
- Ideapad hotkey mute LED support
- ThinkPad phone link hotkey support
- Lenovo Go S microphone now works
- RTL8812AU wi-fi adapter USB 3 support (rtw88)
- LED blinking support for misc wi-fi devices (rtw88)
Plenty more besides that, such as support for more Intel touch equipment, a slate of Bluetooth and audio chips, and all sorts of new networking dongles, devices, and doohickeys.
Going Beyond
Every Linux kernel release is packed to the hilt with change so in addition to what I’ve spotlighted above there are scores of other tweaks and tune-ups, including:
- Lazy preemption support on PowerPC
- AMD’s energy-use counters now supported in perf events
- pidfdfs filesystem can now create file handles
- NFS server now supports NFS4.2+ attribute delegation
- Two new BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter) kernel functions
- NFS localio lets clients perform direct I/O when on the same host as server
- Kernel modules signed using SHA512 rather than SHA1
- Further Rust expansion, including new bindings
- Misc scheduler and load balancer improvements
LWN’s merge reports (Part 1 & Part 2) provide a good run-through of the changes, along with links to deep-dive articles. Or you can browse through the various commits available on the Linux Git — though that may take a while, even for a ‘low commit’ release such as this!
Get Linux kernel 6.14
Linux Kernel 6.14 is free, open-source software. You can download the source code as of today, or wait for your distribution maintainer to package it up and make it available to you — not all will.
On Ubuntu, Linux 6.14 is included out-of-the-box in Ubuntu 25.04, and will be pack-ported to users of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS later this year as part of the Ubuntu 24.04.3 HWE update.
There are other ways to install new Linux kernels on Ubuntu, like downloading and installing Canonical’s own mainline kernel DEBs (and packaged in an unofficial PPA). Now, those builds aren’t advised for most since they have no support, aren’t tested, and so on – use at your own risk.
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