Linus Torvalds, the head and founder of the Linux kernel, has announced the release of Linux 6.16-rc3. This release comes with fixes for new features that were introduced during the merge window several weeks ago, and for old features where issues have been detected or improvements need to be made.
If you remember last week, Torvalds said that rc2 seemed smaller than usual, putting it down to people going on vacation. He said this week’s rc3 seems to be in the usual ballpark for this time of the cycle, so everything looks “entirely normal.”
In terms of changes, this release is “dominated” by wireless networking and GPU driver updates, however, Torvalds doesn’t think that anything really huge stands out this time. While nothing stands out Torvalds urged people to carry on testing and submitting patches.
This update saw improvements to the core system and architecture. There have been improvements to ARM64 KVM that improve stability and correctness of virtualizations on ARM64. There are also improvements to RISC-V KVM and Trust Domain Extensions (TDX) for Intel which expand and secure virtualization capabilities on those architectures.
On the graphics front, there are fixes for the amdgpu and amdkfd drivers that fix job handling, engine resets, display corruption, and power management features. The driver used for Qualcomm’s Adreno GPUs has been updated to improve fault handling, display timing, and driver binding.
The open-source Nouveau (Nvidia) driver has been updated with fixes for GSP message queue references, potential integer overflows, buffer size adjustments, and a use-after-free bug. Finally, the Intel i915 driver has been updated to address early wedge issues, memory initializations, and build errors.
There are also improvements to Wi-Fi devices (ath12k and iwlwifi), sound (ALSA), power management on AMD, and file system improvements (OverlayFS, EROFS, XFS, NFS, SunRPC).
Linux 6.16 is due for release at the end of July and will then be picked up by Linux distributions, which will be the first interaction most end users have with the new features in this update. The main benefit of a newer kernel is that Linux will work on newer hardware, so if you’ve had issues with Linux, be sure to try it periodically in case your hardware is now supported.
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