Linux 7.3 for SBC Owners: New Boards, RISC-V and Pi Updates

Linux 7.3 is officially out. Linus Torvalds tagged the release on Sunday, October 18, 2026, and kernel.org now lists 7.3 as the current mainline kernel. For anyone running a single board computer, this is one of those releases worth reading past the headline features, because it brings mainline support for a long list of new boards, finishes off several RISC-V platforms and includes a small but welcome Raspberry Pi power tweak.

• Release date: Linux 7.3 mainline, October 18, 2026; the 7.4 merge window opened the next day
• New SBCs: Orange Pi 5 Pro, EmbedFire LubanCat 4, Youyeetoo YY3588, Vicharak Vaaman2 and Axon, Milk-V Duo S and Duo 256M, CanMV-K230 and the BeagleBadge
• Raspberry Pi: the V3D GPU autosuspend delay drops from 100ms to 50ms, plus a Raspberry Pi 3 GPU fix
• Storage: Btrfs fsync with the default no-holes feature is about 5x faster, according to Kernelnewbies

Which New Boards Does Linux 7.3 Support?

The Rockchip list is the longest. According to CNX Software's architecture rundown, Linux 7.3 adds device trees for the EmbedFire LubanCat 4 (RK3588S), the Orange Pi 5 Pro (RK3588S), Vicharak's Vaaman2 and Axon boards (RK3588), the Youyeetoo YY3588 SBC, the LCKFB Taishan Pi 3M (RK3576), the HINLINK H28K router (RK3528), the LincStation E1 and even the Anbernic RG Vita-Pro handheld game console (RK3576). The RK3588 also gains a CAN-FD controller driver, useful for robotics and automotive projects.

Mainline support matters because it means a board can boot a stock distribution kernel instead of relying on a vendor's aging fork. That is the difference between a board you can keep updated for years and one frozen on whatever image shipped in the box.

What Changes for RISC-V Single Board Computers?

RISC-V had a busy cycle too:

• SpacemiT K1: CPU frequency scaling is now enabled on the Milk-V Jupiter, the Banana Pi BPI-CM6 gets initial support and PCIe is enabled on the Orange Pi R2S
• SpacemiT K3: SD card, QSPI, SPI and USB support land, along with fixes for the K3 Pico-ITX board
• Sophgo SG2000 and SG2002: initial RISC-V support for the tiny Milk-V Duo S and Duo 256M boards
• Canaan K230: the 64-bit RISC-V AI chip gains initial support for the CanMV-K230 and K230-EVB

If you have been following the RISC-V desktop push, this pairs nicely with the Ubuntu 26.10 RISC-V desktop images for SpacemiT K3, since kernel support is what makes those images practical on more hardware.

What Is New for Raspberry Pi in Linux 7.3?

The Raspberry Pi changes are modest but practical. Back in Linux 7.2 the kernel learned to power down the Raspberry Pi GPU when idle. The 100ms autosuspend delay used then was a workaround for coherency bugs on the Raspberry Pi 4's BCM2711 that caused random GPU hangs. With those bugs fixed, Linux 7.3 halves the delay to 50ms so the GPU power domain can switch off sooner. The VC4 driver also fixes a Raspberry Pi 3 bug where binner slot allocation could fail on an idle GPU, and the 7-inch Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 is now supported on a Toradex carrier board.

Btrfs, Ext4 and Scheduler Gains for Homelabs

Beyond boards, Kernelnewbies highlights several general improvements that matter to homelab and NAS builders. Btrfs regains direct I/O performance lost in earlier releases and, on spinning disks, removes a delay that boosts throughput about fivefold in logging workloads. Ext4 speeds up parallel direct I/O writes. The kernel's SMB server adds support for Apple Time Machine extensions, handy for anyone backing up Macs to a Linux box, and sched_ext now lets each cgroup run its own BPF-based task scheduler.

Most distributions will pick up 7.3 over the coming weeks, with rolling releases first. For more board news and buying advice, browse our mini PC and SBC coverage.

Sources: CNX Software — Linux 7.3 release: Main Changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures — October 20, 2026; Kernelnewbies — Linux 7.3 — October 2026; The Linux Kernel Archives — October 18, 2026.