The next major Linux version will include new Wi-Fi drivers for chips from Atheros, Intel, Intersil/Prism and Marvell and new drivers for Intel LAN chips. The kernel will also in future make better use of energy saving features.

Linux 2.6.33 will have new and improved drivers for Wi-Fi chips by Intel, Ralink and Realtek. Several drivers for old Wi-Fi hardware have been moved to the staging area and will probably soon be discarded. New additions include various LAN chip drivers and several improvements to the network stack.

Enhancements to the ALSA code for HD audio codecs, a V4L/DVB driver for the Mantis TV chip, drivers for MSI laptops and drivers for newer AMD CPUs are just some of the improvements to Linux hardware support.

Linus Torvalds has merged the kernel code for the GeForce-compatible nouveau open source graphics driver as a staging driver into the Linux main development tree – from which kernel version 2.6.33 will emerge in around two and a half months.

Developers for AMD and Intel graphics chips have been extremely productive, having introduced a range of improvements, with others in the works. Developers of the xf86-video-intel graphics driver – "intel" for short – have released version 2.7.0 of the driver.

The next version of Linux is not only the first to offer the Nouveau KMS graphics driver for NVIDIA graphics hardware, it also comes with a multitude of improvements for the two AMD/ATI and Intel graphics drivers which support Kernel-based Mode Setting (KMS).

3D support for newer Radeon graphics chips, better use of power saving features offered by the latest hardware and numerous enhancements to KVM and Btrfs are some of the outstanding items among the many thousands of changes undertaken for the latest kernel version. Various other improvements should also make Linux 2.6.32 more reactive and as a result, feel faster.

Devtmpfs, aka 'devfs 2.0' to its detractors, should allow the Linux kernel to start faster and run without udev. Support has been added for ACPI 4.0 and there are two new make targets which generate kernel configurations attuned to the running system. Changes to the power management subsystem increase data throughput and allow better use of runtime power saving features on modern I/O devices.

X.org 7.5 is scheduled to appear in summer, and could include a new Intel graphics driver. The developers have slashed its code to boost reliability and performance. The kernel developers have now presented versions 2.6.30-rc4 and 2.6.29.2 of Linux, 2.6.27.22 and 2.6.28.10 are released and guest mascot Tuz bows out.