Linux 6.18 crowned LTS kernel – and Alpine 3.23 wastes no time adopting it
(2025/12/05)
- Reference: 1764937629
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/12/05/new_lts_kernel_and_alpine/
- Source link:
Kernel 6.18 has already been designated the new LTS release – just as we predicted – and Alpine Linux 3.23 has arrived carrying it ahead of a flurry of other year-end distro updates.
It seems to be new version season in distro-land. In the last week, lots of Linux distributions have shiny new releases out: we have noted [1]Ultramarine 43 , [2]Solus 4.8 , [3]Endeavour OS "Ganymede," [4]4MLinux 50 , and a [5]new CachyOS snapshot .
[6]Alpine Linux 3.23.0 caught our attention, though. The new release means it's time for the standby partitions on a couple of The Reg FOSS desk's laptops to be upgraded.
[7]
Alpine Linux 3.23 is tiny, elegant, and blisteringly quick
A few days ago we looked at [8]what's new in kernel 6.18 , and predicted it would be the next LTS release. That's already happened. It's not listed as the new LTS on [9]kernel.org but it's there on the [10]releases page . In the [11]announcement , Greg Kroah-Hartman said:
Can't add it to the front page yet, needs to have 6.19 released before that can happen, otherwise it will break people's workflows that depend on the kernel release interface here.
A new LTS version means that the oldest LTS falls off the end. Kroah-Hartman also released [12]kernel 5.4.302 , which is the last release of that version. Although this contains some 200 fixes, he also added a list of known and documented vulnerabilities to the announcement that won't be fixed: an impressive 1,539 of them. We counted.
The previous LTS kernel was version 6.12, and when that was [13]announced in December 2024 , we noted that [14]Alpine 3.21 arrived along with it . An anonymous commenter [15]pointed out back then that Alpine releases are not in fact synchronized with LTS kernels. As they put it, the release right after that year's LTS kernel was "just a happy coincidence." Well, a similar coincidence just happened again.
[16]
The big change in 3.23 is a new version of the Alpine packaging tools. The distro now uses [17]APK 3.0.0 after years of development. APK has existed for a while. When we [18]looked at the GNU-free Chimera Linux in 2023, it was already using APK 3. This version drops support for downloading over FTP, which probably won't inconvenience many people in 2025. For now, Alpine sticks with the older index file format – this is a cautious distro, which is one reason we're happy to upgrade immediately.
[19]
[20]
As with any new distro version, lots of other components have been updated. It's systemd-free, but Alpine is not a completely GNU-free distro, and it does include GCC for example. Now that means GCC 15, but LLVM 21 is also available. It also includes [21]IfState 2 – if you use that, this version means a new config file format. Interestingly, Alpine 3.23 offers GNOME 49, despite that version having [22]stronger dependencies on systemd . For now, the increased reliance on systemd mainly affects the login screen and session manager, so Alpine stays with the GNOME 48 versions of those. It also includes [23]FFmpeg version 8 , plus KDE Plasma 6.5.3, Sway 1.11, LXQt 2.30, and many others.
Unlike most other Linux distros, Alpine can be installed and run in different ways. In [24]diskless mode , it loads from disk into a tmpfs in RAM and runs entirely from there. This is very fast, but you can still customize it, add components, update it, and so on. If your working setup is too big to fit into a RAMdisk, there's also [25]data disk mode , in which Alpine still runs from RAM, but keeps its swap, data, and the whole /var directory on disk – so it's still very quick, but can store more data than would fit into RAM at once.
[26]FreeBSD 15 trims legacy fat and revamps how OS is built
[27]Linux 6.18 arrives as the year's final drop and likely next LTS
[28]Two paths to Enlightenment: AV Linux 25 and MX Moksha step forward
[29]KDE Plasma sets date to dump X11 as Wayland push accelerates
This is handy for devices whose main drive could be worn out by too many writes, such as a Raspberry Pi using a microSD card as the system drive. We have come across one caveat to watch out for when using Alpine on a Raspberry Pi, though. You can't run the special Pi configuration tools, such as the [30]raspi-config command , under the musl-libc-based Alpine. These work fine on other Debian-based RasPi distros such as MX Linux.
Finally, there's the conventional [31]system disk mode , which runs from disk like any other distro – slower, but the easiest and most flexible setup. This is the mode that this vulture uses. We fired up the copy of Alpine 3.22 on our trusty ThinkPad X220 and [32]followed the instructions to upgrade to the new release. On this 2011 laptop, the whole process took about five minutes, and after a reboot, everything worked perfectly.
[33]
Over the last few years, we've covered Alpine [34]3.16 , [35]3.18 , and [36]3.20 as well as last December's version. It fixed musl's DNS issues in version 3.18. Although we suspect most Alpine users are probably using it to run Docker or other small server roles, it makes a great and perfectly capable desktop distro – and a very fast one.
There are other distros that focus on performance such as CachyOS, which we have looked at twice in [37]July 2024 and again on newer hardware in [38]August 2025 . We often read people talking about running Arch or Arch derivatives for performance reasons. As the most popular rolling-release distro, it always has the latest components with all the latest performance optimizations for the new co-processors and GPUs and so on.
Contrary to what many of its evangelists claim, though, Arch is not an especially lightweight distro. If you use Arch itself, you must hand-build your own setup – but once you've carefully assembled it, you've probably installed all the same components and subsystems found in any other mainstream distro that uses mainstream components such as systemd and GNU glibc. If you go for one of the many easier downstream distros, such as CachyOS, then you get what they provide.
[39]
Installing Alpine is not significantly harder, and it's quite well documented. First do the initial text-mode [40]installation in "System disk mode," then [41]install a desktop using the [42]setup-desktop script , then add your apps. We did a clean installation in a VM, added Xfce 4.20, and the result takes 210 MB of RAM and just 1.1 GB of disk.
The fastest programs of all are the ones that you never run. Another way to get your computer to run faster is to have less software. Running Alpine feels a little like running FreeBSD, only much faster. It's familiar, but a lot of stuff that's normal on Linux, including proprietary freeware such as Google Chrome and lots of sluggish Electron apps, aren't there. There are lots of lighter alternatives, though – for example, [43]Ghostwriter in place of [44]Panwriter . You don't get native Slack or WhatsApp clients, but as we've covered before, [45]Thunderbird can do that for you .
We can't recommend it to a beginner. For instance, if you want to dual-boot or do your own custom disk partitioning, you must do some [46]extra work . Like a BSD, it's best to dedicate a whole drive to it. Give it a try – it's a rewarding experience, and we find it's much quicker than the big mainstream distros, which themselves are already faster than Windows. ®
Get our [47]Tech Resources
[1] https://blog.fyralabs.com/ultramarine-43-release/
[2] https://getsol.us/2025/11/29/solus-4-8-released/
[3] https://endeavouros.com/news/the-long-wait-is-over-ganymede-has-arrived/
[4] https://4mlinux-releases.blogspot.com/2025/11/4mlinux-500-stable-released.html
[5] https://cachyos.org/blog/2511-november-release/
[6] https://alpinelinux.org/posts/Alpine-3.23.0-released.html
[7] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/12/04/alpine_3-23.jpg
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/03/kernel_version_618/
[9] https://kernel.org
[10] https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html
[11] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/kernel/website.git/commit/?id=b9ea3472ee1d973f4c27d075c7e4445afa7ade89
[12] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/2025120319-state-rendering-91d1@gregkh/T/#t
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/11/linux_612_lts
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/17/alpine_linux_321/
[15] https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2024/12/17/alpine_linux_321/#c_4983481
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aTMPpNvdRsTR1ZG7VkWc5gAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[17] https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/apk-tools/-/releases/v3.0.0
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/13/chimera_non_gnu_linux/
[19] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aTMPpNvdRsTR1ZG7VkWc5gAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[20] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aTMPpNvdRsTR1ZG7VkWc5gAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[21] https://ifstate.net
[22] https://release.gnome.org/49/developers/index.html#stronger-systemd-dependencies
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/ffmpeg_8_huffman/
[24] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Diskless_Mode
[25] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Data_Disk_Mode
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/05/freebsd_15/
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/03/kernel_version_618/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/02/av_linux_25/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/28/kde_6_8_wayland_only/
[30] https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html
[31] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/System_Disk_Mode
[32] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Upgrading_Alpine_Linux_to_a_new_release_branch
[33] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aTMPpNvdRsTR1ZG7VkWc5gAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[34] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/26/alpine_linux_316_released/
[35] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/16/alpine_linux_318/
[36] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/29/alpine_linux_320_released/
[37] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/23/cachyos_arch_linux/
[38] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/20/cachyos_distrowatch/
[39] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aTMPpNvdRsTR1ZG7VkWc5gAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[40] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation
[41] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Tutorials_and_Howtos#Desktop
[42] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Setup-desktop
[43] https://github.com/KDE/ghostwriter
[44] https://panwriter.com/
[45] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/22/thunderbird_142/
[46] https://www.alextsang.net/articles/20200921-032859/index.html
[47] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It seems to be new version season in distro-land. In the last week, lots of Linux distributions have shiny new releases out: we have noted [1]Ultramarine 43 , [2]Solus 4.8 , [3]Endeavour OS "Ganymede," [4]4MLinux 50 , and a [5]new CachyOS snapshot .
[6]Alpine Linux 3.23.0 caught our attention, though. The new release means it's time for the standby partitions on a couple of The Reg FOSS desk's laptops to be upgraded.
[7]
Alpine Linux 3.23 is tiny, elegant, and blisteringly quick
A few days ago we looked at [8]what's new in kernel 6.18 , and predicted it would be the next LTS release. That's already happened. It's not listed as the new LTS on [9]kernel.org but it's there on the [10]releases page . In the [11]announcement , Greg Kroah-Hartman said:
Can't add it to the front page yet, needs to have 6.19 released before that can happen, otherwise it will break people's workflows that depend on the kernel release interface here.
A new LTS version means that the oldest LTS falls off the end. Kroah-Hartman also released [12]kernel 5.4.302 , which is the last release of that version. Although this contains some 200 fixes, he also added a list of known and documented vulnerabilities to the announcement that won't be fixed: an impressive 1,539 of them. We counted.
The previous LTS kernel was version 6.12, and when that was [13]announced in December 2024 , we noted that [14]Alpine 3.21 arrived along with it . An anonymous commenter [15]pointed out back then that Alpine releases are not in fact synchronized with LTS kernels. As they put it, the release right after that year's LTS kernel was "just a happy coincidence." Well, a similar coincidence just happened again.
[16]
The big change in 3.23 is a new version of the Alpine packaging tools. The distro now uses [17]APK 3.0.0 after years of development. APK has existed for a while. When we [18]looked at the GNU-free Chimera Linux in 2023, it was already using APK 3. This version drops support for downloading over FTP, which probably won't inconvenience many people in 2025. For now, Alpine sticks with the older index file format – this is a cautious distro, which is one reason we're happy to upgrade immediately.
[19]
[20]
As with any new distro version, lots of other components have been updated. It's systemd-free, but Alpine is not a completely GNU-free distro, and it does include GCC for example. Now that means GCC 15, but LLVM 21 is also available. It also includes [21]IfState 2 – if you use that, this version means a new config file format. Interestingly, Alpine 3.23 offers GNOME 49, despite that version having [22]stronger dependencies on systemd . For now, the increased reliance on systemd mainly affects the login screen and session manager, so Alpine stays with the GNOME 48 versions of those. It also includes [23]FFmpeg version 8 , plus KDE Plasma 6.5.3, Sway 1.11, LXQt 2.30, and many others.
Unlike most other Linux distros, Alpine can be installed and run in different ways. In [24]diskless mode , it loads from disk into a tmpfs in RAM and runs entirely from there. This is very fast, but you can still customize it, add components, update it, and so on. If your working setup is too big to fit into a RAMdisk, there's also [25]data disk mode , in which Alpine still runs from RAM, but keeps its swap, data, and the whole /var directory on disk – so it's still very quick, but can store more data than would fit into RAM at once.
[26]FreeBSD 15 trims legacy fat and revamps how OS is built
[27]Linux 6.18 arrives as the year's final drop and likely next LTS
[28]Two paths to Enlightenment: AV Linux 25 and MX Moksha step forward
[29]KDE Plasma sets date to dump X11 as Wayland push accelerates
This is handy for devices whose main drive could be worn out by too many writes, such as a Raspberry Pi using a microSD card as the system drive. We have come across one caveat to watch out for when using Alpine on a Raspberry Pi, though. You can't run the special Pi configuration tools, such as the [30]raspi-config command , under the musl-libc-based Alpine. These work fine on other Debian-based RasPi distros such as MX Linux.
Finally, there's the conventional [31]system disk mode , which runs from disk like any other distro – slower, but the easiest and most flexible setup. This is the mode that this vulture uses. We fired up the copy of Alpine 3.22 on our trusty ThinkPad X220 and [32]followed the instructions to upgrade to the new release. On this 2011 laptop, the whole process took about five minutes, and after a reboot, everything worked perfectly.
[33]
Over the last few years, we've covered Alpine [34]3.16 , [35]3.18 , and [36]3.20 as well as last December's version. It fixed musl's DNS issues in version 3.18. Although we suspect most Alpine users are probably using it to run Docker or other small server roles, it makes a great and perfectly capable desktop distro – and a very fast one.
There are other distros that focus on performance such as CachyOS, which we have looked at twice in [37]July 2024 and again on newer hardware in [38]August 2025 . We often read people talking about running Arch or Arch derivatives for performance reasons. As the most popular rolling-release distro, it always has the latest components with all the latest performance optimizations for the new co-processors and GPUs and so on.
Contrary to what many of its evangelists claim, though, Arch is not an especially lightweight distro. If you use Arch itself, you must hand-build your own setup – but once you've carefully assembled it, you've probably installed all the same components and subsystems found in any other mainstream distro that uses mainstream components such as systemd and GNU glibc. If you go for one of the many easier downstream distros, such as CachyOS, then you get what they provide.
[39]
Installing Alpine is not significantly harder, and it's quite well documented. First do the initial text-mode [40]installation in "System disk mode," then [41]install a desktop using the [42]setup-desktop script , then add your apps. We did a clean installation in a VM, added Xfce 4.20, and the result takes 210 MB of RAM and just 1.1 GB of disk.
The fastest programs of all are the ones that you never run. Another way to get your computer to run faster is to have less software. Running Alpine feels a little like running FreeBSD, only much faster. It's familiar, but a lot of stuff that's normal on Linux, including proprietary freeware such as Google Chrome and lots of sluggish Electron apps, aren't there. There are lots of lighter alternatives, though – for example, [43]Ghostwriter in place of [44]Panwriter . You don't get native Slack or WhatsApp clients, but as we've covered before, [45]Thunderbird can do that for you .
We can't recommend it to a beginner. For instance, if you want to dual-boot or do your own custom disk partitioning, you must do some [46]extra work . Like a BSD, it's best to dedicate a whole drive to it. Give it a try – it's a rewarding experience, and we find it's much quicker than the big mainstream distros, which themselves are already faster than Windows. ®
Get our [47]Tech Resources
[1] https://blog.fyralabs.com/ultramarine-43-release/
[2] https://getsol.us/2025/11/29/solus-4-8-released/
[3] https://endeavouros.com/news/the-long-wait-is-over-ganymede-has-arrived/
[4] https://4mlinux-releases.blogspot.com/2025/11/4mlinux-500-stable-released.html
[5] https://cachyos.org/blog/2511-november-release/
[6] https://alpinelinux.org/posts/Alpine-3.23.0-released.html
[7] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/12/04/alpine_3-23.jpg
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/03/kernel_version_618/
[9] https://kernel.org
[10] https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html
[11] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/kernel/website.git/commit/?id=b9ea3472ee1d973f4c27d075c7e4445afa7ade89
[12] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/2025120319-state-rendering-91d1@gregkh/T/#t
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/11/linux_612_lts
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/17/alpine_linux_321/
[15] https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2024/12/17/alpine_linux_321/#c_4983481
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aTMPpNvdRsTR1ZG7VkWc5gAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[17] https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/apk-tools/-/releases/v3.0.0
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/13/chimera_non_gnu_linux/
[19] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aTMPpNvdRsTR1ZG7VkWc5gAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[20] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aTMPpNvdRsTR1ZG7VkWc5gAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[21] https://ifstate.net
[22] https://release.gnome.org/49/developers/index.html#stronger-systemd-dependencies
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/ffmpeg_8_huffman/
[24] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Diskless_Mode
[25] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Data_Disk_Mode
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/05/freebsd_15/
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/03/kernel_version_618/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/02/av_linux_25/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/28/kde_6_8_wayland_only/
[30] https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html
[31] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/System_Disk_Mode
[32] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Upgrading_Alpine_Linux_to_a_new_release_branch
[33] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aTMPpNvdRsTR1ZG7VkWc5gAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[34] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/26/alpine_linux_316_released/
[35] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/16/alpine_linux_318/
[36] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/29/alpine_linux_320_released/
[37] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/23/cachyos_arch_linux/
[38] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/20/cachyos_distrowatch/
[39] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aTMPpNvdRsTR1ZG7VkWc5gAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[40] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation
[41] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Tutorials_and_Howtos#Desktop
[42] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Setup-desktop
[43] https://github.com/KDE/ghostwriter
[44] https://panwriter.com/
[45] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/22/thunderbird_142/
[46] https://www.alextsang.net/articles/20200921-032859/index.html
[47] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
THANK YOU, Mr. Proven, simply a really big THANK YOU! :-)
El.Mich.
Probably long overdue but I finally simply want to thank you, dear Mr. Proven: First for your articles in general and their scope and themes, which obviously seem to be appealing to me as well. And second, and perhaps even slightly more important, is that very special style of your writing that I really appreciate so much.
Not sure if your and my quite similar age is the cause, but (especially as a non-native English-speaker, ehm -writer) I REALLY do envy you for this special style. Unfortunately I'm missing the correct word(s) to describe it, but you of course do know very well, what i mean by this and I'm certainly looking forward each day for s.th. new out of your "pen". Cheers and hopefully lots of fun and fulfilment in, by and off your work! :-) Though I probably do hope, that it might not feel as work to you as you seem to be really interested in and having fun with the "things" you are writing about. :-)
Alpine additional
Upgraded two Pis yesterday (a 5 and a 500), went perfectly smoothly - there are very few new packages in this release, and there is no kernel 18 for Pi (yet?).
Noticed a (very) slight speed up in my numerical code - don't know why ATM.