The release of Linux 6.3 has been largely uneventful, a far cry from the frenzied activity of recent releases. Torvalds has said that this might be a good sign, that the recent stability was more due to a careful and controlled development cycle, as opposed to some hidden issue that didn't come to light until now.
Improvements to the Intel Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Finally Solved in Linux 6.3
According to the story by Phoronix, Linux 6.3 comes with its share of new features, including fixes to regressions discovered in previous releases and improvements to the Intel Gigabit Ethernet adapter, a two-year-old issue finally solved.
These feature improvements have been well received by users, who have praised them in various Linux discussion boards and blogs. Common critiques of the release include the need for improvements to the user interface and the overall speed of the OS.
Other users have also called for an easier-to-install and use GUI, which may come in future releases. Ultimately though, this release of Linux looks to be on a far steadier footing than previous releases.
Enabling Greater Performance with the Linux 6.3 Kernel
Now that the Linux 6.3 kernel has been officially released, it's time to consider what this new version brings. Torvalds had mentioned in his release announcement that the 6.3 release cycle had been very "calm," this seems to be born out by the features included in the update.
The new Linux 6.3 kernel is the latest in a series of feature-rich updates from Torvalds and his team. Those interested can learn more, as explained on Kernel.org.
Among the changes are an important Btrfs regression fix from Linux 6.2 and fixing an Intel Gigabit Ethernet adapter stuck at 60% of its maximum speed for the past three years.
Technical Improvements for More Efficient Resource Utilization
Other user-facing improvements include better latency performance when running media applications and a significant increase in maximum TCP sessions per second.
These changes result from several technical improvements, including more relaxed memory constraints, improved active memory usage, better scheduling of tasks, and introducing a new task scheduler.
These changes should result in more efficient resource utilization and simplify running high-performance workloads on Linux.
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Improved Hardware Support and Power Management in Linux 6.3
In addition, other improvements in Linux 6.3 include the ability to save the state of a virtual machine across reboots without relying on support from the hypervisor, improved Bluetooth connection stability, better system power management, and expanded hardware support for newer hardware.
There are also several improvements to the Real-Time Preemption feature, which should provide better response time for many applications. All of these changes to the Linux kernel should make it more reliable, secure, and useful for users.
Now that Linux 6.3 has been released, we can look forward to more development from the Torvalds team as they prepare the Linux 6.4 kernel for release. If the 6.3 version is anything to go by, the 6.4 version, detailed further on Red Hat, should be the best yet.
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