Linux Kernel 5.8 is Here. This is What's New

A brand new Linux Kernel 5.8 is announced by Linus Torvalds. This kernel release is mostly a big release in terms of hardware, graphics, and other updates.

Announced in the LKML, Linux Kernel 5.8 immediately available for download from the mainline Kernel builds.

The latest Linux Kernel 5.8 will be available via mainstream Linux distributions in Q3 and Q4 2020 releases this year. Fedora 33 which is due in October 2020, will have the Linux Kernel 5.8. Ubuntu 20.10 Groovy Gorilla which is also due in Oct will have the latest Linux Kernel 5.8.

The current long term support release of Ubuntu 20.04, will get this latest Kernel on the second point release after it is extensively tested and used in Ubuntu 20.10.

Other Linux distributions will follow suite once Ubuntu is patched with the new Kernel.

Let’s take a look what’s new in the Linux Kernel 5.8

Linux Kernel 5.8 Features

A bunch of AMD related changes landed in this update.

AMD energy driver is now in Kernel 5.8 which gives the ability to read the Zen/Zen2 energy sensors. Also, Zen/Zen2 RAPL support is added to limit the runtime power usage.
Nested AMD live migration with KVM is supported now.
Loongson 3 CPU support for AVM virtualization.
Support added for Ice Lake Xeon servers along with RISC-V Kendryte K210 Soc support, new Arm SoC support.
Spectre vulnerability fixes also added.

Storage and graphics related updates

Fixes added for EXT4 filesystems.
More improvements for Btrfs filesystem which Fedora 33 will be defaulting in the coming release.
Microsoft exFAT driver improvements
Graphics driver and other improvements added for Qualcomm Adreno 405-640-650, Intel Tiger Lake, AMD GPU TMZ, updates on Radeon driver.

Other improvements include a bunch of power management updates in Kernel, network support, support added to swap Fn and Ctrl keys for Apple keyboards, more optimized schedular, IO and cache updates.

Changelog

For more details of changes visit this page.

Download

You can install the mainline kernel packages from the below link right now in your latest Ubuntu or Ubuntu-based derivatives. But it is not recommended to install this as it might break the current Ubuntu Linux system whichever you are running – 20.04 LTS or Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

It is recommended that you wait until the Ubuntu 20.10 is released with this Kernel with Ubuntu-specific changes, drivers done, and tested. Eventually, that would be backported to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

For general users, unless you are keen to experiment with the latest hardware whos support is added in this release, you should not update at the moment.

For Fedora, you should be getting the latest Kernel 5.8 in a month tie when Fedora 33 is released.

If you still want to install the latest Linux Kernel 5.8, follow the below instructions to install.

Visit the mainline kernel page.

There are two types of builds available – generic and lowlatency. For common systems, you can download generic builds that work most of the ti=me. For audio recordings and other setups that require low latency, download the lowlatency one.

Download below three packages for generic via terminal and install.

cd /tmp

wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.8/amd64/linux-headers-5.8.0-050800-generic_5.8.0-050800.202008022230_amd64.deb
wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.8/amd64/linux-headers-5.8.0-050800_5.8.0-050800.202008022230_all.deb
wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.8/amd64/linux-image-unsigned-5.8.0-050800-generic_5.8.0-050800.202008022230_amd64.deb
wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.8/amd64/linux-modules-5.8.0-050800-generic_5.8.0-050800.202008022230_amd64.deb