June 3, 2024
KC7NYR Linux in The News

Linux in The News 6-3-24

Last Updated on June 3, 2024 by KC7NYR

Linux Kernel 6.8 Reaches End of Life, Users Should Upgrade to Linux Kernel 6.9

Linux kernel 6.9 already landed in the stable repositories of popular distros, including Arch Linux and openSUSE Tumbleweed.
Linux 6.8 End

This is your friendly reminder that the Linux 6.8 kernel series is now marked as EOL (End of Life) on the kernel.org website, so you should consider upgrading to Linux kernel 6.9 as soon as possible.

Released on March 10th, 2024, Linux kernel 6.8 introduced new features like LAM (Linear Address Masking) virtualization and guest-first memory support for KVM, a basic online filesystem check and repair mechanism for the Bcachefs file system, and support for the Broadcom BCM2712 processor in Raspberry Pi 5.

Unfortunately, Linux 6.8 is not an LTS (Long Term Support) branch and it reached end of life, as renowned Linux kernel developer and maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced today with the release of Linux 6.8.12 (the last update in the series), urging users to move to the latest Linux 6.9 kernel branch.

“I’m announcing the release of the 6.8.12 kernel. All users of the 6.8 kernel series must upgrade. Note, this the LAST 6.8.y release, this branch is now end-of-life. Please move to the 6.9.y branch at this point in time,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman in a mailing list announcement.

Linux kernel 6.9 was released earlier this month on May 12th, 2024, and brings Rust support on AArch64 (ARM64) architectures, support for the Intel FRED (Flexible Return and Event Delivery) mechanism for improved low-level event delivery, support for AMD SNP (Secure Nested Paging) guests, and many other changes.

Of course, Linux 6.9 also brings new and updated drivers to support the latest hardware, so I see no reason why you should not upgrade your GNU/Linux installations to this kernel. Linux kernel 6.9 already landed in the stable repositories of popular distros, including Arch Linux and openSUSE Tumbleweed.

It’s also coming soon to Fedora Linux users, while Ubuntu users can upgrade to Linux kernel 6.9 following this tutorial. Linux Lite users can also install Linux kernel 6.9 from the official repos. If you’re using other GNU/Linux distributions, check with their maintainers to see if Linux 6.9 will be available to upgrade.

However, Linux 6.9 is yet another short-lived kernel branch supported for only a couple of months. Therefore, if you’re looking for long-term support, you should consider moving to one of the many LTS kernel series, including Linux 6.6 LTS and Linux 6.1 LTS, both branches being supported until December 2026.