Systemd 258 is nearing release with [1]many big changes to this init system / service manager . Systemd 258-rc3 was released today with some last minute fixes while also now adding that the next release, systemd 259, will face increased Linux system requirements.

The systemd 258-rc3 release is now available. No major last minute features being squeezed into the release but the release notes did add in that systemd 259 is expected to up the system requirements. This next release, systemd 259, is expected to require Linux 5.10 or newer (but preferring Linux 5.14+), glibc 2.34, OpenSSL 3.0.0+, Python 3.9.9+, and other version bumps:

Required minimum version of following components is planned to be bumped in the next release:

* Linux kernel >= 5.10 (recommended >= 5.14),

* glibc >= 2.34,

* libxcrypt >= 4.4.0 (libcrypt by glibc will be no longer supported),

* util-linux >= 2.37,

* elfutils >= 0.177,

* openssl >= 3.0.0,

* cryptsetup >= 2.4.0,

* libfido2 >= 1.5.0,

* libseccomp >= 2.4.0,

* python >= 3.9.0.

Please provide any feedback on systemd-devel if those removal of old version support would cause problems.

The requirements seem all reasonable and unlikely to cause issues -- especially for those that would be manually upgrading to the latest systemd release themselves would more than likely be running a recent kernel, OpenSSL, etc.

There isn't much more to note with systemd 258-rc3 but for those interested that near-final test release can be found on [2]GitHub .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/systemd-258-rc1

[2] https://github.com/systemd/systemd/releases/tag/v258-rc3