Linus Torvalds, the top and founding father of the Linux kernel, has introduced the discharge of Linux 6.16-rc3. This launch comes with fixes for brand new options that have been launched through the merge window a number of weeks in the past, and for outdated options the place points have been detected or enhancements have to be made.

For those who bear in mind final week, Torvalds mentioned that rc2 appeared smaller than ordinary, placing it right down to individuals happening trip. He mentioned this week’s rc3 appears to be within the ordinary ballpark for this time of the cycle, so the whole lot seems “fully regular.”

When it comes to modifications, this launch is “dominated” by wi-fi networking and GPU driver updates, nonetheless, Torvalds doesn’t assume that something actually large stands out this time. Whereas nothing stands out Torvalds urged individuals to hold on testing and submitting patches.

This replace noticed enhancements to the core system and structure. There have been enhancements to ARM64 KVM that enhance stability and correctness of virtualizations on ARM64. There are additionally enhancements to RISC-V KVM and Belief Area Extensions (TDX) for Intel which broaden and safe virtualization capabilities on these architectures.

On the graphics entrance, there are fixes for the amdgpu and amdkfd drivers that repair job dealing with, engine resets, show corruption, and energy administration options. The motive force used for Qualcomm’s Adreno GPUs has been up to date to enhance fault dealing with, show timing, and driver binding.

The open-source Nouveau (Nvidia) driver has been up to date with fixes for GSP message queue references, potential integer overflows, buffer dimension changes, and a use-after-free bug. Lastly, the Intel i915 driver has been up to date to handle early wedge points, reminiscence initializations, and construct errors.

There are additionally enhancements to Wi-Fi units (ath12k and iwlwifi), sound (ALSA), energy administration on AMD, and file system enhancements (OverlayFS, EROFS, XFS, NFS, SunRPC).

Linux 6.16 is due for launch on the finish of July and can then be picked up by Linux distributions, which would be the first interplay most finish customers have with the brand new options on this replace. The primary good thing about a more moderen kernel is that Linux will work on newer {hardware}, so in the event you’ve had points with Linux, you should definitely strive it periodically in case your {hardware} is now supported.