Support period lengthened for the 6.6, 6.12, and 6.18 kernels

[Posted February 25, 2026 by corbet]

The stated support periods for the 6.6, 6.12, and 6.18 kernels has been extended. The 6.6 kernel will be supported with stable updates through the end of 2027 (for four years of support total), while 6.12 and 6.18 will get updates through the end of 2028, for four and three years of support.

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LLTS

Posted Feb 25, 2026 22:14 UTC (Wed) by alspnost (guest, #2763) [Link] (5 responses)

There's a nice 'symmetry' to the LTS kernels now: the last of the 5.x kernels bow out at the end of this year; the early 6.x kernels run to the end of 2027, and the later 6.x kernels run to 2028. Must be time for a sweepstake on which will be the first 7.x LTS kernel!

Worth a reminder that 6.1 and 6.12 are 'Super LTS' kernels, planned to be supported into the 2030s by CIP.

LLTS

Posted Feb 26, 2026 0:21 UTC (Thu) by sashal (✭ supporter ✭, #81842) [Link] (1 responses)

Keep in mind that CIP supports only a very narrow set of hardware and kernel configs.

LLTS

Posted Mar 2, 2026 5:17 UTC (Mon) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876) [Link]

> CIP supports only a very narrow set of hardware

What does this mean in practice?

CIP supports x86-64, 32 bit and 64 bit ARM, and 64 bit RISC-V. Pragmatically, that does not seem so narrow.

Perhaps you mean specific hardware like "AM335x Beaglebone Black". This is true and I guess it means that CIP does not protect you from security problems that originate in drivers for hardware they are not testing against. Is that what you meant?

One of the platforms CIP supports is QEMU on all the architectures listed above. So, you also have the option of running on a virtual machine.

LLTS

Posted Feb 26, 2026 10:26 UTC (Thu) by pschneider1968 (guest, #178654) [Link] (1 responses)

And 6.1 and 6.12 happen to be the release kernels of Debian Bookworm and Trixie, respectively. It's good if these are supported for a very long time.

LLTS

Posted Feb 27, 2026 8:45 UTC (Fri) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link]

Unless you count paid ELTS trixie support ends in mid 2030 too.

LLTS

Posted Feb 28, 2026 1:25 UTC (Sat) by An0nYm0 (guest, #182552) [Link]

Seeing as roughly every 5-6 releases a new LTS kernel is introduced, it seems logical to assume that 7.3 or 7.4 would be the first LTS kernel in the 7.x lineup.

Thanks

Posted Feb 26, 2026 18:47 UTC (Thu) by wtarreau (subscriber, #51152) [Link]

Thanks Greg and Sasha. We had settled on 6.1 and 6.12 precisely because as a fall back there is CIP, and this change is much appreciated as it allows to remain closer to the regular and well-known tree.