New version for the Linux kernel, made official yesterday by Linus Torvalds. It contains many new features, including a long list of improvements for hardware support, particularly that of AMD’s RDNA4 architecture and the transition to a stable version of support for Intel’s Xe2.
This version 6.12, available on kernel.org, stands out for its first capabilities dedicated to real time, with the arrival of PREEMPT_RT, after almost two decades of work. In real time, a system must not only deliver the expected result, but it must do so within the required deadlines. On Wikipedia, we find simple examples: production industry, trading rooms, control systems in aeronautics or even in the automotive world.
Which is not to say that these capabilities were non-existent in the Linux world until now. At Canonical, for example, PREEMPT_RT has been available via Ubuntu Pro since February 2023. At MontaVista Software, the component has even been available since the first developments, around twenty years ago. Kernel 6.12 simply formalizes the integration of PREEMPT_RT and its general availability.
Other changes brought by the new version include the arrival of SWIG links for libcpupower, simplified loading of microcode patches for AMD Zen processors, enumeration of ACPI-based interrupt controllers on RISC-V, the ability to create fictitious thermal zones and control them via debugfs, support for running as a protected guest on Android or even Device Memory TCP.
As usual, getting the new kernel depends on the type of distribution you are using. On classic systems like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, you sometimes have to wait for the next version, particularly on LTS variants. On rolling releases, they generally arrive quickly.
