14 DAY TRIAL // According to Andrew Morton's merge plans for the next version of Linux kernel, KVM, the Kernel-based virtual machine, will be merged into the version 2.6.20 of the Linux Kernel. In a recent interview, he offered a list of patches in his -mm tree, summarizing for each of his plans as to whether or not they will be pushed to Linus Torvalds for inclusion in the upcoming 2.6.20 Linux kernel.
Andrew's summaries were as simple as "shall merge" or "shall hold in -mm". Many patches have been already forwarded to the appropriate subsystem maintainer for further reviews. All major changes should already be merged into the 2.6.20 RC1 kernel, which was released in mid-December, two weeks after 2.6.19 kernel was released.
To see the list of patches please have a look here.
About KVM
KVM stands for Kernel-based Virtual Machine and is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware. It consists of a loadable kernel module (kvm.ko) and a userspace component. With KVM, you can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, sound card, etc.
Currently, KVM is stable and is fast enough for desktop use on recent processors. For server workloads, an optimized version of the MMU virtualization is needed. For now, KVM is available as a patch to recent Linux kernel versions and as an external module that can be used with the kernel of your favorite Linux distribution.
You can download the stable of Linux kernel now from Softpedia.
You can download the development version of Linux kernel now from Softpedia.