Linus Torvalds tagged Linux 7.3 on Sunday. The top commit in the official kernel.org changelog, titled simply "Linux 7.3", is dated Sun Oct 18 13:14:58 2026 -1000. Most coverage has gone to the core changes, and they are substantial. For anyone who flashes images onto small boards, though, the more useful part is lower down in the ARM and RISC-V device-tree sections. Four boards that makers are likely to run into now have initial mainline support: BeagleBadge, Milk-V Duo S, Banana Pi BPI-CM6 and ArmSoM CM5 (with its CM5-IO carrier).

Below is what the release contains, what the changelog actually says about each board, and what it doesn't say.

The headline features, briefly

Kernel Newbies lists the main features of 7.3 as follows:

  • improved VRAM management for low-end GPUs
  • completed cgroup sub-schedulers for sched_ext
  • a new failfs filesystem and an fchroot(2) system call
  • Btrfs and Ext4 performance improvements
  • a more powerful binfmt_misc
  • Apple Time Machine extensions for the in-kernel SMB server
  • better FUSE performance over io_uring

OSTechNix describes the new binfmt_misc as BPF-based and the FUSE work as zero-copy with io_uring. It also notes ksmbd and NTFS3 updates.

OSTechNix also reports the size of the cycle: 18,765 non-merge commits from 3,021 developers, including 807 first-time contributors. The outlet calls these record figures. They come from OSTechNix's reporting, not from a kernel.org statement.

Most of this will matter little on a small embedded module. Faster Btrfs and Ext4 may help anyone whose root filesystem sits on an SD card or eMMC, but the figures Kernel Newbies gives are for specific Btrfs workloads, and we won't extrapolate them to these boards.

The boards, one by one

BeagleBadge (TI AM62L)

The kernel.org changelog has two BeagleBadge entries: "AM62L BeagleBadge: New AM62L based BeagleBadge board" and "arm64: defconfig: Enable drivers for BeagleBadge". The second one is the more practical. It turns on drivers for the board in the stock arm64 defconfig, so a kernel built from mainline with that config should include them. The changelog doesn't say which drivers.

BeagleBoard.org's product page describes BeagleBadge as a wearables board. The specs below are quoted from that page:

  • SoC: Texas Instruments AM62L32 Sitara
  • CPU: dual-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A53 at 1.25 GHz
  • Memory: 2Gb LPDDR4 RAM (written as "2Gb" on the page)
  • Storage: 4GB eMMC, micro-SD socket
  • USB: USB2.0 Type-A host
  • Expansion: 2x QWIIC, 1x Grove, 1x mikroBUS
  • Onboard sensors: light sensor, accelerometer/gyroscope (IMU), temperature and humidity sensing
  • Display: 4.2" ePaper via a 24-pin FPC connector

On software, the page says "Linux and Zephyr base ports with mainline roadmap". It also lists LVGL and MicroPython libraries, and Meshtastic and ActivityPub integration. According to its schema.org metadata, the page was last modified on 2026-08-27, before 7.3 shipped, and it does not mention Linux 7.3. The "mainline roadmap" it describes now has a first step in a released kernel. That conclusion comes from comparing the two sources, not from anything BeagleBoard.org has said.

Milk-V Duo S (Sophgo SG2000), on both architectures

Milk-V Duo S has the most unusual entry in the release. The changelog adds the board twice: "arm64: dts: sophgo: add initial Milk-V Duo S board support" and "riscv64: dts: sophgo: add initial Milk-V Duo S board support".

The changelog explains why. The Sophgo SG2000 is a "mixed Arm/RISC-V chip" that was "already supported using the Arm core but is now also added for RISC-V". The Arm-side pull request describes the board as using the SG2000, "dual-arch, RISC-V and ARM64". Mainline now has device trees for the same board from either side of the chip. For anyone teaching or comparing the two ISAs, a single board with upstream device trees for both is unusual.

Note the word "initial" in both commit titles. Initial device-tree support usually covers enough to boot and reach a console, with more peripherals added in later cycles. The changelog doesn't list which Duo S peripherals work in 7.3, so check the DTS before relying on any particular interface.

Banana Pi BPI-CM6 (SpacemiT K1)

The changelog entry reads "Banana Pi BPI-CM6 - Add initial support", and the commit is titled "riscv: dts: spacemit: k1: Add Banana Pi BPI-CM6 IO board". Kernel Newbies lists it as "k1: Add support for Banana Pi BPI-CM6 IO board". The commit message says the IO board combines the BPI-CM6 compute module with an IO carrier, and that the initial support covers the UART console, eMMC, SD card, I2C, EEPROMs, PCIe, USB and dual Ethernet interfaces. Anything beyond that list, such as a display or camera, is not mentioned in the changelog.

ArmSoM CM5 and CM5-IO (Rockchip RK3576)

The fourth board is "arm64: dts: rockchip: Add ArmSoM CM5 and CM5-IO". The commit message describes the CM5 as an RK3576 compute module and the CM5-IO as its carrier. It says the carrier adds HDMI, a GbE RJ45, two USB-A ports behind a USB3 hub, USB-C with DP alt-mode, a PCIe 2.0 x1 M.2 slot, microSD, status LEDs and a 40-pin header. Kernel Newbies lists the board the same way. Unlike the other three, its commit title does not say "initial".

Raspberry Pi CM4 and CM5 networking

Raspberry Pi gets no new board in 7.3, but the changelog does include network-driver fixes that mention its modules. A macb series was found while using a Raspberry Pi CM5 (RP1 GEM) as a pktgen source for a CM4; in clone_skb mode the CM5 rebooted within seconds, and the fix copies shared skbs before appending the FCS. The changelog describes these as found with pktgen traffic tests, so they matter mainly to anyone running that kind of load on the RP1 Ethernet.

Also in the device-tree list

Kernel Newbies' Architectures section also lists the Sophgo SG2000 itself and the Variscite DART-MX8M-PLUS with its Sonata board. The release is broader than the four headline boards.

What It Means for Makers

Who it is for. The main beneficiaries are people who build their own kernels or use distributions that track mainline closely: Buildroot and Yocto users, Debian and Fedora tinkerers, and educators who want lab images that don't depend on one vendor's kernel. Each of the four boards now has at least a starting point upstream.

What it enables.

  • BeagleBadge: board-specific drivers enabled in the arm64 defconfig alongside the new device tree.
  • Milk-V Duo S: one board with upstream device trees for both arm64 and riscv64, which makes it useful for teaching and for side-by-side ISA experiments.
  • Banana Pi BPI-CM6 and ArmSoM CM5: compute modules with a mainline device tree. That matters if you are designing a carrier board and want a kernel path that isn't tied to a vendor fork.
  • Raspberry Pi CM4/CM5: macb networking fixes, most relevant to custom carriers running mainline.

What it does not replace yet. Two of the board entries, Duo S and BPI-CM6, are labelled "initial" in their commit titles, and the others are new-board additions rather than finished platforms. Don't expect full peripheral parity with vendor kernels in this release. Read the device-tree source for your board before assuming a given interface such as a camera, display, NPU or radio works.

Price and availability. None of the sources used for this article give prices for these boards. The BeagleBadge page as read doesn't list a price, and we had no primary vendor product pages for the Milk-V, Banana Pi or ArmSoM boards. We won't quote figures we haven't verified, so check each vendor directly. Linux 7.3 itself has been released and is available from kernel.org as of October 18, 2026. Distribution kernels will pick it up on their own schedules.

Sources