Recently, Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux kernel 5.8. According to him, the new kernel is one of the most important releases, as it contains countless improvements and updates, as well as many new features.
What changes does Linux Kernel 5.8 contain?
As Torvalds mentioned , version 5.8 is one of the biggest and most important releases ever. However, many of the changes are made in the back-end of the kernel, and are not visible to ordinary users.
For example, Linux 5.8 contains updates to the open-source MSM driver (Freedreno), which now supports Qualcomm Adreno 405, 640 and 650 GPUs. Of course, this change is not significant for Linux Desktops. However, the new support may be useful when users are using GPUs such as Snapdragon 855+ or Snapdragon 865 (which is found in the Samsung Galaxy S20).
In addition to Freedreno updates, the new Linux kernel version also includes updates for Radeon Drivers. Specifically, the AMDGPU driver in kernel 5.8 now includes TMZ (Trusted Memory Zone) capability, which allows for vRAM encryption.
Additionally, AMD 's improved driver now has the ability to stop the GPU when the temperature is higher than the safe limit.
In addition to improvements to video drivers, Linux Kernel 5.8 also includes updates to exFAT support. Even though exFAT support has been available since kernel 5.7, the new release includes many improvements for this system.
Detailed information about the remaining improvements and updates in Linux kernel 5.8 can be found here.
Upgrade to Linux kernel 5.8:
For now, many distributions will continue to use the previous kernel version. Even though some rolling distributions (e.g. Arch Linux) allow the use of the latest version, many of the stable distributions, such as Ubuntu and Debian, do not provide the 5.8 kernel to users.
However, experienced users of stable Linux distributions can change the Kernel using manual methods. However, we inform you that the process is not simple. Proceed at your own risk.
