Linux kernel 6.10 arrives with punched-up hardware support

The latest Linux kernel is here, with relatively few new features but better support for several hardware platforms, including non-Intel kit. Linus Torvalds announced kernel 6.10 this weekend and as usual it contains so many hundreds of changes that we can't summarize them all – for instance, the Kernel Newbies summary for …

[david 12]

gaming support is now a factor visibly driving improvements in Linux.

That includes the improved support for TPM.

Games are now using TPM for license protection, and increasingly, if you haven't got TPM enabled in your hardware and OS, you can't activate.

[RAMChYLD]

Re: gaming support is now a factor visibly driving improvements in Linux.

Still a no-go. These games also invariably drop a windows driver that has zero regards for ring level and run at ring-0. Unless something like NDISWrapper or Project Evil is implemented but with the sole purpose of letting the Kernel-level anti-cheat driver run, there is no way these kernel-level anti-cheat games are going to run.

Skull and crossbones. Because those games always run on Linux due to their anti-cheat being stripped out. Always.

[WonkoTheSane]

Re: gaming support is now a factor visibly driving improvements in Linux.

Easy Anti Cheat does work on Linux, as long as the game developer using it can be bothered to tick a box telling it to.

[navarac]

Re: gaming support is now a factor visibly driving improvements in Linux.

It's very simple AFIK. If the game developer (or any other software developer for that matter) cannot be arsed to support the platform I use, then I cannot be arsed to use that software. Their loss, not mine.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

Re: gaming support is now a factor visibly driving improvements in Linux.

< "Their loss, not mine"

If the platform you use is Linux (me too), then thank the Steam Deck for there finally, possibly, being a little truth to that statement. It never made financial sense for developers of retail games to officially support Linux. The support costs would dwarf the revenue with such a low install base. Even with the Steam Deck, the numbers aren't all that significant. Valve is doing all of the heavy lifting for game developers, who now just need to avoid breaking Proton.

[druck]

Alpha legacy

All the effort was not wasted: some Alpha people and technology ended up at AMD, where the know-how went into AMD's 64-bit x86 chips.

Not forgetting contributing to the ARM ecosystem, twice - Alpha tech went in to the StrongARM, and ex-Alpha engineers formed P.A. Semi which Apple bought and created the M series ARM based Apple silicon.