OpenBSD 8.0 is out: Linux 6.18 graphics drivers and Intel Arc support

The OpenBSD project released version 8.0 of its system on 20 October 2026, in an official announcement on the openbsd-misc mailing list. This is the project’s 61st release. As usual, the announcement repeats its track record: more than thirty years with only two remotely exploitable holes in the default install. The project brings that number up with every release, like a pub that keeps its “days since last incident” board on the wall, and once again nobody has had to change the board.

Graphics drivers catch up with Linux 6.18

The drm(4) subsystem, which handles graphics in the kernel, is now synced with Linux 6.18.53. No, you didn’t just read a Linux version number in BSD release notes by mistake. It tells you which Linux release the graphics code was taken from.

In practice, the announcement highlights inteldrm(4), which now supports Intel Arc A-series cards (DG2, codename Alchemist). It also mentions a workaround for GuC timeout errors seen on some Alder Lake systems. For AMD drivers, the announcement goes no further than the general drm(4) update. It doesn’t list any newly supported cards, and we’re not going to make one up for it.

One last point, which leads into the next section: the larger address space on amd64 now lets the system map more than 4 GB of video memory. If your card has more than that, the system can finally use the memory beyond those 4 GB.

amd64 thinks a lot bigger

The amd64 kernel’s virtual address space grows from 4 GB to 512 GB, 128 times larger. The pmap(9) direct map now sits at a random address, which spoils things for anyone counting on finding it in the same spot every time. Swap encryption now uses the processor’s AES instructions, on amd64 and on arm64 alike. So a protection that used to cost CPU time now costs less of it. Security features almost never get cheaper, so enjoy this one.

vmd goes up to 64 virtual CPUs

OpenBSD’s own virtualisation stack makes a real leap. vmm(4) and vmd(8) now support multiprocessing, with up to 64 virtual CPUs per guest. Other additions: x2apic mode for guests, MSI/MSI-X interrupts for virtio devices, checksum offloading and better qcow format handling. The missing lapic and ioapic modes have been implemented, which fixes support for 32-bit Linux guests. VM ownership has also been reworked around files. On the hardening side, vmd(8) can no longer read out of bounds when it loads a malformed elf(5) file.

Out the door, and back from sleep

The loongson architecture is gone: it didn’t work with Clang 22. sparc64, meanwhile, moves to the LLVM toolchain. On riscv64, the kernel supports the V vector extension, the Sstc timer extension and the Advanced Interrupt Architecture (AIA), with two new drivers, imsic(4) and aplic(4). arm64 gains hibernation and bounce buffers.

On laptops, suspend gets better. ufshci(4) now survives a suspend on the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge and the HONOR MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon. With machdep.lidaction=0, a suspended laptop no longer wakes up when you close the lid. IdeaPads now resume thanks to wake interrupts added to bytgpio(4). The hibernation resume code also gets several checks against integer overflows and out-of-bounds reads. For developers, a new function, getexecpath(3), returns a copy of the program’s execution path.

Thirty years, two remote holes, and now 512 GB of kernel space. OpenBSD has moved into a mansion and, true to form, checked every window latch before unpacking a single box.