The Linux community has reason to celebrate as the latest stable Linux 6.2 kernel update has been officially released by Linux founder Linus Torvalds. The update brings new features, new drivers, and security improvements, while also supporting a wide range of hardware including the Apple M1 series chips.
First Major Kernel Version Update for 2023
The Linux 6.2 kernel update is the first major kernel version update for Linux in 2023. The Linux 6.3 merge window has officially opened and Linus Torvalds has stated that it already has more than 30 pull requests queued.
New Features and Hardware Support
The Linux 6.2 kernel update introduces several new features, including Protective Load Balancing (PLB) for the IPv6 stack, support for Intel's "asynchronous exit notification" mechanism, and improvements to the new Rust infrastructure. In terms of hardware support, the update improves the stability of the Intel DG2 / Alchemist graphics card, and it can be used immediately after booting. Additionally, the update provides support for the Apple M1 series chips.
Deep Call Tracing Improves Performance on Older Intel Skylake-Era PCs
The new update also incorporates Deep Call Tracing, which helps improve performance on older Intel Skylake-era PCs, along with various file system driver enhancements, security improvements, and other optimizations.
New Tool RV (Runtime Verification) and Other Changes
Linux 6.2 also ships with a new tool called RV (Runtime Verification) that controls the operation of the runtime verification subsystem, a new framework for dealing with computing acceleration devices, and support for user-defined BPF objects. Other changes include new mount options for NTFS3 filesystems, support for F2FS filesystems to write data to files and truncate them into a single atomic operation, and a new userspace API to control the I/O memory management unit.
Expected to Be Default Kernel for Ubuntu 23.04 and Fedora 38
Linux 6.2 is expected to be the default kernel for Ubuntu 23.04 and is expected to appear in Fedora 38 ahead of the successor v6.3 kernel in late April. The new kernel can be downloaded from kernel.org and is available for download and use by everyone in the IT community.
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