LLTS [LWN.net]

LLTS

Posted Feb 25, 2026 22:14 UTC (Wed) by alspnost (guest, #2763)
Parent article: Support period lengthened for the 6.6, 6.12, and 6.18 kernels

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.

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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.

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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.