Linux Kernel 7.1: A New NTFS Driver, Code Cleanup, and What’s New

Linux kernel 7.1 has just arrived, and it brings one major new feature: a completely rewritten NTFS driver. Announced by Linus Torvalds himself, this release also cleans up legacy code, modernizes memory management, and broadens hardware support. Here’s what you need to know.

A New NTFS Driver for the Linux Kernel

This is arguably the biggest change in this version, released on June 14, 2026. The NTFS file system driver has been rewritten and now supports write operations, relying on the kernel’s iomap. Previously, it was limited to read-only access: this new feature is the result of 4 years of work by Namjae Jeon (already the author of the exFAT driver).

This new driver is said to deliver significant performance gains (110% on multi-threaded writes), and drives will also mount much faster.

But Linux 7.1 does not stop there when it comes to storage. Several file systems benefit from this release:

• The ublk block device driver now supports zero-copy I/O, which reduces unnecessary data copies.
• The Btrfs shutdown operation is now considered stable and is no longer marked as experimental.
• exFAT now supports pre-allocation via fallocate().
• The CIFS client now adds support for temporary files through O_TMPFILE.
• The existing ntfs3 driver also receives a few minor improvements, despite the arrival of a new driver.

Internal Modernization, Stronger Security, and Legacy Code Removed

With Linux kernel 7.1, memory management is modernized with a redesign of the swap subsystem and the removal of the old swap map, resulting in better efficiency and a smaller memory footprint. Linux 7.1 also fixes a long-standing issue where terminated cgroups could remain stuck.

On the security side, there are also:

• Stricter default permission restrictions for access to /proc/PID/mem.
• New hooks for security modules regarding overlay file systems and Unix domain sockets.
• The Landlock module takes advantage of this new socket hook to offer additional policy options.

At the same time, code cleanup has been underway: Linux 7.1 drops support for several x86 sub-architectures from the 486 era, such as M486, M486SX, and ELAN. UDP Lite support is gone, and IPv6 must now be built directly into the kernel or disabled, since it can no longer be compiled as a module. Support for obsolete hardware (including older PCMCIA drivers) has also been removed, which allowed 140,000 lines of code to be eliminated from the Linux kernel.

Expanded Hardware Support

Let’s talk about Apple, since the macsmc-power driver has been introduced in Linux kernel 7.1. It makes it possible to display battery status, voltage, and temperature on MacBooks with an Apple Silicon chip (M1, M2). For the Steam Deck OLED, there is also good news: a sound-related bug has been fixed, and from what I understand, this issue had been around for several years.

There are also additions and improvements affecting components from Qualcomm, Rockchip, Tenstorrent, ESWIN, Loongson, and Lenovo. Among the changes that users will notice: support for the Lenovo Legion Go S controller.

Linux 7.1 is already available! Now we just have to wait for it to be adopted by Linux distributions, starting with rolling release distributions. Wider rollout is expected in the coming weeks.

For more details, I recommend reading this very comprehensive article.

Florian Burnel Co-founder of IT-Connect

Systems and network engineer, co-founder of IT-Connect and Microsoft MVP "Cloud and Datacenter Management". I'd like to share my experience and discoveries through my articles. I'm a generalist with a particular interest in Microsoft solutions and scripting. Enjoy your reading.

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