Linus Torvalds releases Linux 4.6

Linus Torvalds has loosed version 4.6 of the Linux kernel on the waiting world.

“It's just as well I didn't cut the rc cycle short, since the last week ended up getting a few more fixes than expected,” wrote the Linux overlord.

“Since rc7, there's been small noise all over, with driver fixes being the bulk of it, but there is minor noise all over (perf tooling, networking, filesystems, documentation, some small arch fixes.)”

New this time around is support for a bunch more ARM systems-on-a-chip, including Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820. IBM's POWER9 finds its first support, although perhaps prematurely given the silicon won't arrive until late 2016.

Whatever CPU you use to run Linux, it can now have a more complex conversation about when to vary its frequency,

OrangeFS, XFS, Btrfs and EXT 4 users can all look for tweaks that enhance performance of their preferred file systems, while F2FS is now said to be rather better at running on flash storage.

Dell's laptops will play nicer with Linux thanks to driver changes that permit hotkeys to be pressed into service. Raspberry Pi users may appreciate new drivers that are said to do lovely things for 3D graphics performance.

Torvalds says “I'll start doing merge window pull requests for 4.7 starting tomorrow.” Expect that release about two months from now, unless Linus takes a summer break or things go awry in some unpredicable fashion. ®