The new stable version of Linux has been officially released. The focus of Linux 6.8 is primarily on improving support and compatibility.

“Mister Linux” Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 6.8 on Sunday evening. There were rumors that the stable release would be later than planned and that there would be an eighth version first Release candidateversion would be released. Ultimately, Torvalds didn’t feel it was necessary to delay the release, and so Linux 6.8 sticks with the usual release cycle of seven RC versions and then a stable release.

Notable additions to Linux 6.8 include new drivers for Intel support for the Google Tensor chips and AWS Nitro will also be integrated into Linux, as well as deeper Rust integration. Finally, there is also improved support for Raspberry Pi 5 and work on RISC-V architectures, file system fixes and network fixes for network self-tests.

Linux 6.8 is also a major release for related Linux distributions. Ubuntu has already announced that it will base its next major release on this version of the Linux kernel. Ubuntu 24.04 is scheduled to be released on April 25th, subject to a few caveats.

The Ten Million Release

Torvalds is not a developer who can stand still for long. Contributors can Pull requests for the upcoming version Linux 6.9. This could well be an anniversary version for Linux: Linux 6.9 should reach the milestone of ten million Git objects, Torvalds expects. “Of course there is absolutely nothing special about it, other than a nice round number. Git doesn’t care,” Torvalds adds.