It seems that Linux 5.6 will be an important release, if we pay attention to this list of news

A few minutes ago we have published an entry in which we talked about the release of Linux 5.5, the latest stable version of the Linux kernel. As is usual, the fact that they give us an update or new version of a software also means that they are going to start preparing the next one, and that is what will happen with Linux 5.6. The merge window or "merge window" has already been opened, but many of the new features that it will bring under its arm have long been known.

From the looks of it, Linux 5.6 it will be a major launch. Although the list we publish below is not official, it is what they are currently working on and only one major problem would make Linux 5.6 not arrive with any of the following news. As always, thank you Michael Larabel of Phoronix, the work done by following the official forums and collecting the list of news that you have below.

Linux 5.6 Highlights

• WireGuard finally enters the core of the trunk line for this secure VPN tunnel.
• Initial USB4 support thanks to open source developers at Intel.
• The FQ-PIE package scheduler is being incorporated as another step to combat buffer locking in Linux.
• Improved AMD Zen power / temperature reporting. The k10temp driver is now in good shape for reporting temperatures and current / voltage readings on AMD Zen / Zen + / Zen2 processors.
• SATA drive temperature report controller in the core that is combined with HWMON interfaces, does not require root access to read, and there are no special user space utilities as was the case previously.
• Btrfs asynchronous drop support for better TRIM / drop performance on SSD with Btrfs.
• F2FS data compression support.
• A solution to stop ASUS TUF laptops with AMD CPUs from overheating on Linux.
• Hardware-accelerated open source NVIDIA RTX 2000 "Turing" graphics support, although dependent on firmware binary blobs not yet released.
• AMD Pollock support was shipped as part of the graphics changes.
• AMD DP MST DSC support is all connected.
• AMD Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is wired to take advantage of the PSP / Secure Processor in Raven and the newer APUs.
• Power management improvements for Radeon GPUs.
• Ongoing Intel graphics work on Tiger Lake and Elkhart Lake, among other enhancements.
• Intel SST Core-Power support.
• Faster performance of memmove () for Intel Ice Lake.
• Intel MPX is being completely erased.
• The Intel Simple Firmware interface is being deprecated.
• Introduction to Intel Virtual Bus.
• Optimized for Intel's IGC 2.5G Ethernet Controller offering ~ 7% better performance.
• Possible improvements to Intel server power management.
• Direct I / O Optimizations EXT4.
• FSCRYPT online encryption.
• Support for more Logitech controllers with community-maintained input controller code.
• New random option GRND_INSECURE.
• Support for ARNv8.5 RNG and other new ARMv8 features.
• AMD Zen 3 enablement has started.
• Learn more about Intel Jasper and other new bits of hardware.
• More AVX / AVX2 / AVX-512 optimizations within the kernel cryptographic code.
• Final preparation for TCP multipath support.
• Most likely to include Western Digital's Zonefs file system for SMR drives.
• The time namespace to allow namespace offsets for system boot time and monotonic clocks, with a container use case in mind.
• Mainline controller now for keyboard / mouse support on the SGI Octane and Onyx2 (late 90s hardware).

When will all this come

It is difficult to know. New versions of the Linux kernel are released when available, but usually arrive about every two months. Taking into account that yesterday, January 26, v5.5 arrived, we can calculate that Linux 5.6 will arrive between March 29 and April 5. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa will be released about three weeks later, so it cannot be 100% ruled out that this is the kernel version that Focal Fossa uses. In any case, Linux 5.6 will be a great release.