Linux Kernel 5.5 Reaches End of Life, Upgrade to Linux 5.6 Now

Linux 5.5 end of life

The Linux 5.5 kernel series has reached end of life (EOL) and everyone using it should upgrade to the latest Linux kernel 5.6 series.

Released earlier this year in January, the Linux 5.5 kernel series introduced some interesting new features, such as full support for the latest Raspberry Pi 4 models, better Wi-Fi connectivity, SMB multichannel support, and support for using CIFS as root file system.

It also brought improvements to the Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF), cross device offloaded copy for NFS clients, the ability to add alternative names to network interfaces, as well as KUnit, a new unit testing framework for the Linux kernel.

After nineteen maintenance updates, the Linux 5.5 kernel series has now reached end of life as renowned kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced today after releasing Linux kernel 5.5.19.

“I’m announcing the release of the 5.5.19 kernel. Note, this is the LAST 5.5.y kernel to be released, it is now end-of-life, please move to 5.6.y now. All users of the 5.5 kernel series must upgrade,” said the developer on the Linux kernel mailing list.

Therefore, Linux kernel 5.5.19 is the last maintenance update in the series, which is now marked as EOL (End-of-Life) on the kernel.org website.

If you’re using the Linux 5.5 kernel on your GNU/Linux distribution, you should consider upgrading to the latest release of Linux 5.6 kernel series as soon as possible. At the moment of writing, Linux kernel 5.6.6 is the most advanced version available.

Linux OS maintainers are also urged to move to Linux 5.6 to allow users to upgrade their systems. However, please note that Linux kernel 5.6 isn’t a long-term support series.

Linux kernel 5.6 brings built-in support for the WireGuard VPN protocol, USB4 support, AMD Pollock support, a new Zonefs file system, initial support for AMD Ryzen Zen 3 CPUs, support for Nvidia GeForce RTX 2000 GPUs, and many other cool features.

Last updated 4 years ago

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