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There's nothing specifically required by a kernel to support new processors, except maybe power saving features, arguably unimportant for desktop. If you mean c

There's nothing specifically required by a kernel to support new processors, except maybe power saving features, arguably unimportant for desktop. If you mean compiler optimizations, those are usually sent upstream way early.. A cursory Google search shows AMD first sending Zen (now Ryzen) patches to GCC as early as 2015. So, presumably it has been in a few recent compiler releases already. https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2015-09/msg02311.html https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2015-09/msg02311.html

pmoriarty 10y ago
"There's nothing specifically required by a kernel to support new processors..." Does that go for motherboards that can support these new chips too?
- notaplumber 10y ago
  Not specifically, if there's a new chipset or southbridge it may require kernel driver update (..perhaps as simple as new PCI IDs) or a new driver entirely, but similarly those changes are upstreamed rather quickly to increase the change of landing in a stable release. AMD and Intel engineers have hardware quite early to work on this, long before the consumer product ships.