Linus Torvalds announced today the release and general availability of Linux kernel 6.11, the latest stable version of the Linux kernel that introduces several new features and improvements.
Highlights of Linux 6.11 include a new driver subsystem to enable support upstream for Bluetooth/WLAN chips on Qualcomm platforms, getrandom() support to vDSO on x86 systems adding a new kind of mapping to mmap(2) that lets the kernel zero out pages anytime under memory pressure, virtual CPU hotplug support for AArch64 (ARM64) ACPI systems, and a new mechanism to create interrupt domains.
Also new is a dmaengine_prep_peripheral_dma_vec() function to support transfers using dma vectors and documentation and user in AXI dma, along with STMicro STM32 DMA3 support, support for a minimum version for the Rust toolchain, support for the Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake CPU platforms, Loongson-3 CPUFreq driver support, fast CPPC support in the amd-pstate cpufreq driver, and hwmon interface support to the ACPI fan driver.
On top of that, Linux kernel 6.11 updates KVM support for the LoongArch architecture with ParaVirt steal time support, perf kvm-stat support, and some VM migration enhancements, enables KVM halt poll shrinking by default, rewrites the disk accounting scheme for the bcachefs file system to store accounting as normal btree keys, and implements NFS server-side support for the new pNFS NVMe layout type.
Rust-based block drivers, a specialized allocator designed to thwart heap-spraying attacks, and preliminary support for AMD’s SEV-SNP, a secure encrypted virtualization technology, are among the features of the new release. This release also introduces Rust-based firmware loading abstraction, along with enhancements in memory hotplug and STACKLEAK protection specifically for the RISC-V architecture.
The 6.11 version of the Linux kernel also introduces a unified VMware hypercall API layer which facilitates API support for confidential computing solutions, institutes a new mechanism for background block group reclaim, enables automatic cgroup removal upon subvolume deletion, and integrates new ‘rescue=’ mount options for the Btrfs file system. Additionally, it includes NUMA support for RISC-V ACPI-based systems and boasts numerous updated and newly supported drivers for improved hardware integration.
The Linux kernel 6.11 is set to be a short-term release with support lasting only a few months. It is anticipated to be followed by Linux kernel 6.12, which Linus Torvalds has opened for merging and is expected to be the forthcoming long-term supported (LTS) kernel, projected for release around mid to late November 2024.
The Linux kernel 6.11 is available for download directly from the Linus Torvalds’ git tree or from the kernel.org website. However, it is advisable to await the arrival of Linux 6.11 in your distribution’s stable software repositories before proceeding with an update.
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