14 DAY TRIAL // Good news for all users of a GNU/Linux operating system, as Linus Torvalds announced the immediate availability for download of the Linux 3.19 kernel, which brings interesting features, the usual bugfixes, and general performance improvements.
Last week, we’ve announced that Linux kernel 3.19 RC7 is the last development release of the upcoming Linux 3.19 kernel and that the final version will arrive most probably at the end of the week, and so it did, as it became generally available for download in the last hours of February 8.
Though it was tempted to do so, Linus Torvalds stated in the official release announcement for Linux kernel 3.19 that there was no need to delay the final release by creating another RC (Release Candidate) version, “So nothing all that exciting happened, and while I was tempted a couple of times to do an rc8, there really wasn't any reason for it.”
Linux kernel 3.19 is out there, go forth and test it out
Among some of the prominent features of Linux kernel 3.19, we can mention scrubbing support for the Btrfs filesystem, which is still in heavy development and cannot be yet used by default on GNU/Linux operating systems. In addition, Btrfs received fast device replacement in RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) 5 and 6.
Support for the Intel Memory Protection Extensions has also been implemented in this brand-new release of the Linux kernel, along with support for Intel's next-generation Skylake graphics, better multi-touch support, LZ4 compression in SquashFS, initial support for Nvidia GeForce 900 series of graphics cards, and DPM fan control support for the Radeon driver.
Without any further ado, you can download the Linux kernel 3.19 package right now from Softpedia or directly from its official website. Kernel developers should keep in mind that the merge window for the forthcoming Linux 3.20 kernel is now open. Also, it looks like Linux kernel 3.19 is already available in the testing repositories of the awesome Arch Linux distribution, so go forth and test it out.
