The Linux community marked a significant milestone with the release of Linux 6.15-rc1, the first release candidate for the upcoming stable release. Announced by Linus Torvalds on April 6, 2025, this release concludes a busy two-week merge window filled with updates. This release includes new features, bug fixes, and hardware support improvements, showcasing the ongoing growth and strength of the Linux ecosystem. Torvalds described the merge window as one of the larger ones, with many changes stemming from the pent-up development following holiday interruptions.
Driver updates take center stage in the release, accounting for two-thirds of the changes. These updates indicate a heavy emphasis on improving hardware compatibility, especially with AMD, NVIDIA, and Apple hardware. Linux 6.15-rc1 includes notable additions, such as updates to the Zstd compression library, support for the NVIDIA open-source driver, and enhanced AMD hardware support. These changes promise significant performance improvements, benefiting end-users across a wide range of devices and applications.
Among the key features in this release, the inclusion of IO_uring’s network zero-copy receive support stands out. This improvement is expected to enhance networking performance, particularly in server-grade workloads and large-scale deployments. Additionally, the release introduces faster AES-CTR crypto for users of AMD Zen 5 and newer Intel/AMD processors, addressing encryption needs more efficiently. The updated Zstd compression library, now at version 1.5.7, offers better performance for storage and compression-heavy use cases, further improving the kernel’s capabilities.
Linux 6.15-rc1 also expands hardware support, with new drivers for NVIDIA’s open-source GPU kernel support, AMD’s Versal NET SoC, and Apple hardware. Optimizations like AMD INVLPGB and enhancements for kernel boot times are also included. This release sets the stage for the stable version, expected in late May or early June 2025. With substantial improvements in hardware support, performance, and optimizations, Linux 6.15-rc1 strengthens Linux’s position as the dominant kernel across diverse platforms, from IoT devices to supercomputers.
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