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Believe it or not, the Linux kernel 5.6 is now EOL (End-of-Life) and it will no longer receive updates or security fixes. Everyone is urged to update to the latest Linux 5.7 kernel series as soon as possible.
Launched at the end of March 2020, Linux kernel 5.6 was the first to come with built-in WireGuard support, a top-notch, fast, modern, and secure VPN (Virtual Private Network) tunnel for providing next-generation VPN connections on Linux-powered machines.
In addition, the Linux 5.6 kernel series brought USB4 support, AMD Pollock support, a new CPU idle cooling thermal driver, initial support for Amazon Echo smart speakers, a new Zonefs file system for zoned block devices, compression support for F2FS, as well as initial support for AMD Ryzen Zen 3 CPUs.
Most probably your GNU/Linux distribution is not even running the Linux 5.6 kernel, but it looks like it’ll never will as it reached end of life last week with the release of the Linux 5.6.19 update, as announced by renowned kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman on the Linux kernel mailing list.
“I’m announcing the release of the 5.6.19 kernel. All users of the 5.6 kernel series must upgrade,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman. “Note, this is the LAST 5.6.y release to be made, please move to the 5.7.y tree at this time. It is now end-of-life.”
Therefore, if you’re using a GNU/Linux distribution powered by Linux kernel 5.6, you should upgrade it as soon as possible to Linux kernel 5.7. If that’s not possible right now, at least consider updating to Linux kernel 5.6.19, which is the last update in the series.
Linux OS maintainers should rebase their future releases on Linux kernel 5.7 if they’re not using a long-term supported kernel series, such as Linux 5.4, which will receive updates until year 2025.
Linux kernel 5.7 was released earlier this month to general public and comes with new and improved exFAT file system implementation, a thermal-aware scheduler for increased performance, a new BPF-based Linux Security Module, new features for x86 CPUs, and better security for ARM64 devices.
The latest release in the Linux 5.7 kernel series is version 5.7.5, which was released today. You can download it right now from the kernel.org website, but I highly recommend you to install it from the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distribution.
Last updated 4 years ago
