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The latest Linux 5.6 kernel series has got its first point release, marking the series as stable on the kernel.org website and therefore ready for mass deployments.
Released on March 29th, Linux kernel 5.6 comes with built-in WireGuard support, USB4 support, AMD Pollock support, cache support for NFS clients, as well as async discard support for the Btrfs file system.
Moreover, it features a new CPU idle cooling thermal driver, a new Zonefs file system for zoned block devices, initial support for Amazon Echo smart speakers, and compression support for the F2FS (Flash-Friendly File System) file system.
As of today, Linux kernel 5.6.1 arrived as the first point release in the new series, adding 27 changes, with 148 insertions and 103 deletions.
There’s mostly some fixes for various USB and Staging drivers, but also support for ASKEY WWHC050, BroadMobi BM806U, and Wistron Neweb D19Q1 devices.
The good news, however, is that the Linux 5.6.1 is marked as “stable” on the kernel.org website, which means that everyone is safe to install the latest kernel on their GNU/Linux distributions.
“All users of the 5.6 kernel series must upgrade,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman in a mailing list announcement. “The updated 5.6.y git tree can be found at https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git;a=summary.
If you’re an OS maintainer and usually ship newer kernels in your software repositories, it is highly recommended that you download and compile this first point release for your supported architectures so users can upgrade to it as soon as possible.
As I reported earlier today, Linux Lite are already among the first to install the Linux kernel 5.6, and I believe Arch Linux users aren’t far behind.
Rest assured that more distros will adopt Linux kernel 5.6 in the coming weeks, but please keep in mind that this isn’t a long-term supported (LTS) kernel.
Last updated 4 years ago
