A new stable version for this branch of the Linux kernel has been released

Jun 19, 2014 07:32 GMT  ·  By

The latest version of the stable Linux kernel, 2.6.32.63, is out, a short while after the previous update in the series.

The most recent build of this kernel is much smaller than the previous one, but the maintainer has integrated a number of changes and various fixes. This is a very old kernel that was released back in December 2009, which means that it just passed the four-and-a-half-year mark. As it stands right now, this is the oldest still supported kernel available.

Just like the previous update for this kernel, which arrived several weeks back, the maintainer made the announcement about it a few days ago.

“This is the start of the longterm review cycle for the 2.6.32.63 release. All patches will be posted as a response to this one. If anyone has any issue with these being applied, please let me know,” Willy Tarreau said in the email announcement.

It's interesting to see this old kernel being resurrected after one year of inactivity. This is a very popular package and there are still a number of distributions that have chosen to integrate it.

The projected end of life for Linux kernel 2.6.x is expected to arrive soon, or at least this is what the kernel.org website says. There is no precise date, but EOL should hit before autumn and there are just a few months until then.

According to the changelog, audit_krule mask accesses no longer need bounds checking, the link-down is now reported while the interface is down, another early deadlock detection check has been added, attaching to kernel threads is now prevented, the atomic acquisition in futex_lock_pi_atomic() is now validated, and the lookup_pi_state is now more robust.

The Linux maintainer also explained that one of the reasons for this second update was to fix a regression that had been introduced by sysctl fixes in the previous build. It's possible that we won't see another release in this branch by the time it reaches EOL status.

Keep in mind that this is an LTS release, which means that it has been around for a very long time. If you feel adventurous, you can ditch the LTS branch and go for the latest 3.15 version or even the latest 3.16 RC, although you might encounter problems installing a very new kernel.

A complete list of commits in this branch of the kernel can be found in the official announcement. You can download Linux kernel 2.6.32.63 right now from Softpedia.