Linux 6.0-rc1 now available with many performance improvements and support for new hardware

Linux 6.0-rc1

They were talking about it as 5.20, but assessing the possibility of it going up to the sixth figure. After the 5.19 release, everything pointed to the fact that the next version would be the sixth, and we have already left all doubt: Linus Torvalds launched a few hours ago Linux 6.0-rc1 and, as a little over three years ago with the launch of Linux 5.0, it seems that the Finnish developer has decided to change the figure because it was time, but the truth is that there are important changes.

Linux 6.0-rc1 makes a couple of things clear. The first is something we can expect from each new version, which will support a lot of new hardware; the second is that will improve performance, for example, on some Intel and AMD devices. Not surprisingly, more than a million lines of code have been added.

Linux 6.0-rc1 does not include Rust yet

6.0 will be big and will introduce a lot of improvements, but there are some that have not arrived in Linux 6.0-rc1. For example, patches of rust for linux, or some performance improvements. They are probably available for 6.1.

Actually, I was hoping we'd get something from rust's first framework, and the multi-gen LRU VM, but neither happened this time. There are always more versions. But there is a lot of ongoing development everywhere, with the shortlog being too long to post and therefore - as usual for rc1 notices - below only contains my merge log. You can get a high level overview just by looking at that, but it's obviously worth pointing out again that the people mentioned in the merge log are just the maintainers I feed off of, and there are over 1700 developers involved when you start to see the full details in the git tree.

When the stable version is released we will publish an article with all the highlights, but for now we can advance that Linux 6.0-rc1 includes:

  • Continuous driver additions for Intel Raptor Lake.
  • New RISC-V extensions.
  • Support for setting the hostname of the system via the "hostname=" kernel parameter.
  • AMD auto mode transition for Lenovo ThinkPad laptops.
  • Intel Havana Labs Gaudi2 support.
  • The HEVC/H.265 interface has been promoted to stable.
  • The new AMD Raphael audio driver.
  • Some early work on Intel Meteor Lake support like with audio.
  • Tuning tools for AMD Zen 4 IBS.
  • Intel IPI virtualization for KVM, AMD x2AVIC for KVM.
  • Intel SGX2 support.
  • Runtime verification for security critical systems.
  • Send Protocol v2 for Btrfs.
  • Great improvements in the scheduler.
  • More preparations for AMD Zen 4.
  • Continued AMD RDNA3 graphics enablement, and some very nice IO_uring improvements.

Torvalds encourages the community to use Linux 6.0-rc1 to get it in good shape for the release of the stable version that expected in october. Considering that Ubuntu 22.10 will land in the same month, it is not expected to arrive on time, and users who want to use it will have to install it on their own. The best way to do it is to use Mainline. If not, 23.04 will probably use Linux 6.2.


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