As expected, Linux Kernel 4.13 officially debuted last weekend, as announced by its creator, Linus Torvalds, along with the recommendation that all users migrate to this new version as soon as possible.
Linux 4.13 development started in mid-July when the first version came out Release Candidate (RC), where we could learn about some of the news of this important update. Of course, there were also numerous improvements and support for new hardware components.
Main news of Linux Kernel 4.13
Among the biggest new features of the Linux kernel 4.13 are the support for the new Intel Cannon Lake and Coffee Lake processors, enhancements to the AppArmor module, improved power management, support for buffered I / O operations, and much more.
There are also support for AMD Raven Ridge via AMDGPU graphics driver, which received numerous improvements, as well as support for more files within a single directory within the EXT4 file system thanks to the implementation of the "largedir" option.
The file system EXT4 it also allows you to store more attributes per file, and there is improved support for HTTPS, SMB 3.0, and other protocols.
Apart from these functions, with Linux Kernel 4.13 it will also be possible to re-export NFC file systems via NFS (Network File System), as well as execute copy operations on an OverlayFS file system. More information can be found in the log found at ad by Linus Torvalds.
Linux Kernel 4.13 is now the latest stable version for GNU / Linux distributions, but is currently labeled 'mainline' on the portal kernel.org, from where you can download the source file Tarball if you want to compile it on your Linux operating system. It will take several weeks until it is declared stable and ready for deployment, usually when the first maintenance update appears, the Linux 4.13.1.