Linux 6.12 Finishing The Transition For Moving Intel CPUs Past The "Family 6" Era

As written about early in the year, future Intel CPUs will be moving past the "Family 6" identification used since the mid-1990s with the P6 micro-architecture. Since then Intel has continued releasing new CPUs under "Family 6" with different model IDs while AMD has been more open to changing its Family ID every Zen generation or two. With Intel using Family 6 for so long it led to a lot of Linux kernel code just relying on Model ID comparisons for determining between Intel CPU generations and the like. Thus a lot of Intel CPU model handling reworks are needed for preparing future Intel CPU generations that will no longer be in Family 6. With Linux 6.12 it looks like that work will be wrapping up.

Intel engineers have been transitioning the Linux kernel code around Intel CPUs to new VFM macros for encoding the Vendor, Family, Model information more elegantly and making the code future-proof against new non Family 6 processors. The new VFM'ed code has been landing the past few kernel cycles and for the upcoming Linux 6.12 cycle looks like it will be wrapped up.

Ahead of the Linux 6.12 merge window opening up next week, a number of early pull requests have been submitted and among that is the x86/cpu updates from tip.git. That pull request puts the finishing touches on the rework on the new Intel CPU model defines:

"Add the final conversions to the new Intel VFM CPU model matching macros which include the vendor and finally drop the old ones which hardcode family 6"

The existing Intel Family 6 CPU definitions within the Linux kernel cover up through next year's Clearwater Forest with Darkmont cores. So after that is perhaps the point we will see Intel's new products moving past the Family 6 era.