Linux 7.1 speeds up file transfers with ntfs update

Linux kernel 7.0's fresh face has quickly given way to its successor, Linux 7.1, with a slew of improvements, code cleanup, and exciting new features.

Goodbye i486, hello faster transfers

Linus Torvalds has announced the arrival of the first candidate release (7.1-rc1) following a rather chaotic change window. This update promises significant enhancements, particularly in its compatibility with Windows.

The standout feature of this tidying is the farewell to support for i486 processors, chips Intel launched over three decades ago that stopped being manufactured in 2007. Torvalds and his team have begun purging configurations and cleaning up old code that was a nuisance.

This affects chips from various manufacturers like AMD, Cyrix, and IBM, all part of that generation. Users can still utilize older LTS versions of Linux, which will maintain support for a limited time. For the dev team, this is a minor evil – eliminating i486 support is seen as a necessary cleanup rather than a loss.

The code formerly dedicated to the ancient chipset occupies a whopping 14,104 lines in the kernel and would shave off 80 files, lightening the load. Many developers agree that modern systems no longer require these compatibility layers.

Linux also gains HDMI FRL compatibility for NVIDIA GPUs, thanks to Nouveau, an open-source tool. This divorce from the past and the end to one of Linux's historical gripes.

However, it's not all about eliminating the obsolete – there's room for improvement too. The team has been working on speeding up a long-standing user annoyance: the sluggishness of moving files between Linux and Windows.

Until now, if you had a dual-boot setup, accessing your Windows folders (in NTFS format) from Linux was a heavyweight process. The new NTFS driver, rewritten from scratch, arriving with Linux 7.1 aims to change that. The goal now is to have opening or moving files from a Windows disk in Linux work seamlessly.

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Resolute Raccoon is already available with the Linux 7.0 kernel and Gnome 50.