14 DAY TRIAL // Linus Torvalds announced a few moments ago the release of the next long-term supported (LTS) kernel series, Linux kernel 4.14, which introduces several new features and improvements.
Linux kernel 4.14 LTS has been in development since mid-September, during which is received a total of eight RCs (Release Candidates) that introduced features like support for AMD Secure Memory Encryption, Heterogeneous Memory Management to support upcoming GPUs, and improved cpufreq behavior.
One of the major new features of the Linux kernel 4.14 LTS, however, is the implementation of bigger memory limits in x86 hardware, which bumps the limits to 128PiB of virtual address space and 4PiB of physical address space. This release also introduces a new ORC unwinder to improve the kernel traces and the size of the kernel.
Other than that, Linux kernel 4.14 LTS introduces zstd compression for both Btrfs and SquashFS file systems, the ability to zero-copy data from user memory to sockets, improved cpufreq coordination with SMP, asynchronous non-blocking buffered reads, as well as support for the PCID instruction for faster TBL flushing.
Linux kernel 4.15 merge window now open
Of course, Linux kernel 4.14 LTS also introduces numerous new drivers for recent hardware, along with updates for existing drivers and dozens of other core improvements. A complete changelog is available here if you're curious to know what exactly was changed in this release, which will be supported for the next few years.
With this, the merge window for the next major release, Linux kernel 4.15, is now open, for the next two weeks when the first Release Candidate sees the light of day and kicks off the development cycle. However, it could take more than that due to the upcoming Thanksgiving week in the US.
"And with this, the merge window for [Linux kernel] 4.15 is obviously open. As mentioned in the late rc announcements, the extra week for RC8 means that now Thanksgiving week ends up happening during the second half of the merge window, and I'll be off on a family vacation," said Linus Torvalds in the mailing list announcement.
Until then, you are free to download the Linux kernel 4.14 LTS source tarball right now from kernel.org or via our website and compile it for your GNU/Linux distribution. Right now, Linux kernel 4.14 is tagged as "mainline" kernel, so it will officially go "stable" when the first point release arrives, Linux kernel 4.14.1.