AF ALG, the kernel's userspace crypto interface, is queued for deprecation on security grounds. Apple M3 console boot, open source HDMI 2.1 FRL, and USB4STREAM are expected alongside it.
The Linux kernel's 7.2 merge window is set to open around June 14, 2026, carrying a quiet but consequential house-cleaning: the formal deprecation of AF_ALG, the Linux-native crypto interface. The patch marking it deprecated on attack-surface grounds is queued in -next, and as of Phoronix's Friday roundup, Linus Torvalds has not objected.
That decision sets the tone for a merge window otherwise dominated by hardware bring-up. Linux 7.1 stable is expected to land on Sunday, June 14, 2026; the 7.2 merge window opens the moment Linus tags 7.1 and runs roughly two weeks, during which individual pulls can still be dropped (Phoronix). Michael Larabel's preview, compiled from LKML traffic and subsystem -next branches, treats the items below as expected rather than shipped.
The marquee graphics item is initial AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 FRL support, a milestone the open-source AMD driver stack has been working toward for years. FRL (Fixed Rate Link) is the signaling mode that lets HDMI 2.1 push beyond the bandwidth ceiling of earlier revisions, and getting it upstreamed has been deferred through several cycles. Its arrival matters for anyone running Linux on recent AMD Ryzen laptops or workstation hardware (Phoronix).
Apple Silicon users finally get something too, though with caveats. Apple M3 Mac boot support is queued for 7.2, but Phoronix characterizes the support as "very limited", phrasing the site attributes to its own reading of the patch series rather than a kernel.org statement. For anyone with an M3 Mac, the realistic outcome after 7.2 ships is a machine that boots to a console, not a daily-driver desktop.
Two more features round out the curated set. USB4STREAM, a tunneling protocol for carrying multiple USB and DisplayPort streams over a single USB4 link, is expected to merge, with practical consequences for docking stations and multi-display workflows. Cache Aware Scheduling, which teaches the scheduler to keep work on cores that already hold the relevant data, is also queued (Phoronix).
The AF_ALG decision deserves the most attention because it is the one item on this list that asks users to give something up. The interface lets user-space programs ask the kernel to perform hashing, symmetric, and AEAD operations without going through OpenSSL or a userspace provider, and it underpins crypto fast paths in Android and a range of security tooling, per Phoronix's framing of the merge-window context. Deprecating it narrows the kernel's crypto attack surface and pushes the same work into userspace libraries that are easier to update and audit. The trade-off is real for any distribution, mobile vendor, or security tool currently relying on AF_ALG as a fast path.
What to watch: whether Linus pulls the AF_ALG deprecation as written, softens the timeline, or asks for a compatibility shim, and whether the 7.2 cycle absorbs any of the other expected items without last-minute drops (Phoronix).