As expected, this evening Linus Torvalds released Linux 6.13-rc1 to cap-off the two-week [1]Linux 6.13 merge window. With Linux 6.13 comes many new features.

I'll have out my customary Linux 6.13 feature overview in the next day or two, but simply put there is a heck of a lot of new features. Some of the exciting additions in Linux 6.13 include [2]lazy preemption support , [3]the AMD 3D V-Cache optimizer driver , [4]support for Ultra Capacity SD cards , [5]new performance optimizations , [6]multi-grain timestamps has re-landed LLC and NUMA awareness for sched_ext , [7]the start of Intel Xe3 graphics enablement that initially is for next-gen Panther Lake processors, [8]Clang AutoFDO and Propeller compiler optimization support , [9]clearing out old and unmaintained staging drivers , [10]device aliasing for F2FS , [11]PCIe TPH support for AMD Zen 5 servers , [12]reporting the number of hung tasks since boot , [13]reaching a "tipping point" with new Linux Rust drivers expected soon , [14]AMD EPYC Turin now defaults to the amd_pstate driver , [15]NVMe 2.1 support , and [16]ReiserFS has been retired from the mainline kernel . Again those are just what I found most exciting for the Linux 6.13 feature additions... Stay tuned for my more exhaustive and organized Linux 6.13 feature overview shortly. What you won't find though are any Bcachefs changes this cycle [17]due to the Linux CoC decision .

Linux 6.13 stable should be out by late January if all goes well. Stay tuned for the Linux 6.13 changes/features article followed by the start of Linux 6.13 kernel benchmarking.

As for the Linux 6.13 merge window, Linus Torvalds wrote in the [18]6.13-rc1 announcement :

"So two weeks have passed, the merge window is over, and -rc1 is pushed out.

And for once - possibly the first time ever(*) - it looks like the release cycle doesn't clash horribly up with the holiday season, and we'll have time both to stabilize this release, _and_ the work for 6.14 won't be starting until well into January. Sure, I'd not be at all surprised if 6.14 ends up being smaller than average just because people hopefully take a rest over the holidays, but that sounds like a good thing. I don't think we need to stretch the release timing out, but we most certainly can just relax a bit and make the next release smaller."



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+6.13

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-Sched-Lazy-Preempt

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-x86-Platform-Drivers

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-SDUC-Ultra-Capacity

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-MM-Patches

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-Multigrain-Timestamp

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-DRM-Kernel-Graphics

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AutoFDO-Propeller-Linux-6.13

[9] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-Staging

[10] https://www.phoronix.com/news/F2FS-Linux-6.13

[11] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-PCI

[12] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-Non-MM

[13] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-char-misc-More-Rust

[14] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-Power-Management

[15] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-Block-NVMe

[16] https://www.phoronix.com/news/ReiserFS-Deleted-Linux-6.13

[17] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-CoC-Bcachefs-6.13

[18] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=whiWXVxhd0BATPPd6t36HJ49vApdJXZOYuAJtRA5pRi1g@mail.gmail.com/T/#u