Intel Thunderbolt maintainer Mika Westerberg is introducing USB4STREAM, a new protocol and Linux driver (thunderbolt_stream) targeting the Linux 7.2 kernel. It exposes /dev/tbstreamX character devices on USB4/Thunderbolt-connected hosts, enabling raw packet transfer between machines without going through the network stack. Any app using standard read/write syscalls can use it. Practical use cases include disk backups via initramfs without needing SSH or networking, filesystem transfers using tar/gzip pipes, and even sharing a laptop camera with a desktop over a Thunderbolt cable using GStreamer. Configuration is done through ConfigFS, supporting multiple simultaneous streams with automatic HopID allocation. The patches are in the thunderbolt.git 'next' branch and are expected to land in the Linux 7.2 merge window in mid-June.
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