Linux in The News 12-4-23

Last Updated on December 4, 2023 by KC7NYR

Linux Kernel 6.5 Reaches End of Life, It’s Time to Upgrade to Linux Kernel 6.6 LTS

Linux kernel maintainers urge users and distributions to upgrade to Linux kernel 6.6 LTS or another LTS series.
Linux Kernel 6.5 End

After only thirteen maintenance updates, the Linux 6.5 kernel series is now marked as EOL (End of Life) on the kernel.org website, which means that it will no longer be supported with bug and security fixes.

Linux kernel 6.5 was released by Linus Torvalds on August 27th, 2023, to celebrate Linux’s 32nd birthday. It introduces exciting new features like Wi-Fi 7 support, MIDI 2.0 support in ALSA, ACPI support for the RISC-V architecture, Landlock support for UML (User-Mode Linux), as well as AMD “Zen” system improvements.

Today, exactly three months after its release, renowned Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced Linux kernel 6.5.13, which appears to be the last maintenance update in the Linux 6.5 kernel series, which now reached end of life and it’s one of the few kernel series to have only thirteenth point releases.

As usual, when a Linux kernel branch reaches end of life, Greg Kroah-Hartman urges all users and distribution maintainers to consider upgrading to the latest stable kernel series as soon as possible. In this case, users running Linux kernel 6.5, should consider upgrading to Linux kernel 6.6 LTS.

“I’m announcing the release of the 6.5.13 kernel. All users of the 6.5 kernel series must upgrade. Note, this is the LAST 6.5.y kernel release. This branch is now end-of-life, all users must move to the 6.6.y kernel branch at this point in time,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman in the Linux kernel mailing list announcement.

Not only Linux 6.6 is the latest stable kernel release, but it’s also an LTS (Long-Term Support) branch that will be supported with bug and security fixes through regular maintenance updates for three years from the moment of writing, until December 2026.

Linux kernel 6.6 LTS was released on October 29th, 2023, with new features like Intel Shadow Stack support, a new task scheduler called EEVDF, improved support for Lenovo IdeaPad, HP, and ASUS devices, USB MIDI 2 gadget support, as well as numerous new and updated drivers for better hardware support.

Linux 6.6 LTS is already powering various popular GNU/Linux distributions, such as Arch Linux and openSUSE Tumbleweed, and it should soon be available in Fedora Linux 39. Ubuntu users can also install Linux kernel 6.6 LTS using our handy tutorial from here.