Kernel release status [LWN.net]

The current stable 2.6 kernel is 2.6.14.6, released on January 7. It contains a small number of fixes, a couple of which address potential security issues. Chances are this will be the last update for the 2.6.14 kernel.

There is no 2.6.16 prepatch yet. Well over 2000 patches have been merged into the mainline git repository, however. See the separate article (below) for a list of the most significant changes.

The current -mm tree is 2.6.15-mm3. Recent changes to -mm include a big x86-64 update, sysfs support in the parallel port driver, John Stultz's core time subsystem patches, the removal of several old USB audio drivers, the openat() system call and friends, a new direct migration patch set, and multi-block allocation for the ext3 filesystem. Despite all that new stuff, -mm has thinned considerably over the last week as patches have moved into the mainline.

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Kernel release status

Posted Jan 12, 2006 13:32 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

It's stable, but it's not the latest -stable kernel. No -stable kernel has been released for 2.6.15 yet.

Kernel release status

Posted Jan 13, 2006 10:12 UTC (Fri) by veelo (guest, #4694) [Link]

You have lost me. What is the difference between a stable and a -stable
kernel? If it is not the latest stable kernel, what is? It is according to
www.kernel.org... Anyways, I'd like to see a summary of what I can expect
in kernel 2.6.15.

Kernel release status

Posted Jan 13, 2006 21:03 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

A `-stable kernel' is a kernel released from the -stable branch (gregkh being the sucker maintaining it), which accumulates small, safe, critical fixes to Linus's kernels. It's currently maintained until the next Linus kernel is released, and then one last -stable is released for the previous branch containing all accumulated fixes for that branch that hadn't get been released.

A `stable kernel' is the latest kernel considered to be stable, whoever that is released by.

So the sequence of stable kernels might go

2.6.14.2 -stable
2.6.14.3 -stable
2.6.14.4 -stable
2.6.15 (Linus)
2.6.14.5 one last -stable for people who can't upgrade to 2.6.15 yet
2.6.15.1 (now in its review cycle: expect a release soon)