Oracle's Linux engineers have released their build of kernel 6.9 for Oracle Linux – and they're already planning for 6.10 and beyond.

In April, Oracle updated its own kernel build for Oracle Linux, the [1]UEK-next kernel , which is a continuous integration Linux kernel release. This has just borne fruit in the form of a new release, [2]UEK-next 6.9 . It's based on the very latest stable kernel release 6.9 [3]released in May .

This is not your typical enterprise Linux distro kernel. Indeed, its [4]release notes specify:

UEK-next is not supported for production use, however we will provide limited test and development support for these kernels to help validate applications and workloads.

In 2022, when Oracle Linux 9 came out, [5]we took a look at some of its differences from other CentOS Linux-based distros. Notable among these is that Oracle offers a choice of two different kernels: RHCK, its Red Hat Compatibility Kernel; and UEK, the quite different Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, which it [6]has been offering since 2010 .

Oracle explains that "the UEK-next release is built by applying UEK specific fixes on top of the latest Linux mainline release tag." It also [7]describes that configuration and how it differs from the upstream kernel. Differences include its [8]soft affinity feature, which it first offered upstream in 2017 and then again in 2019.

[9]Let's take a look at Oracle's love and hate relationship with open source software

[10]Early MySQL engineer questions whether Oracle is unintentionally killing off the open source database

[11]Oracle CEO says more tech can help offset tech's worst effects

[12]Linux 6.9 arrives, plus Torvalds indicates Arm64 will get a bit more love

Notably, the UEK offers Btrfs – a file system for which Red Hat itself [13]dropped support way back in 2017 .

Oracle includes other features that haven't made it into the mainline kernel yet – such as the ability to change the kernel scheduler using the "pluggable scheduling framework" [14]sched_ext , which is built on the [15]eBPF kernel programmability feature . At present, this is being considered for inclusion in kernel 6.11.

[16]

In other words, the version after next. Right now, kernel 6.10 is still work-in-progress, and is only at release candidate 6 stage. This is some cutting-edge stuff, and shows that UEK-next isn't simply a bunch of vendor-specific tweaks to the upstream kernel 6.9 – it has some quite major differences.

[17]

Even for this jaded old vulture, it feels overly cynical to describe this as Oracle flexing its muscles. The database champ has been maintaining its own distro [18]since way back in 2006 and the following year [19]denied that it was intending to fork RHEL . It has clearly gathered significant expertise in that time, which it can now contribute to the OpenELA initiative [20]it co-founded last year . ®

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[1] https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/uek-next

[2] https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/uek-next-6-9

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/13/linux_kernel_69_released/

[4] https://github.com/oracle/linux-uek/blob/ueknext/latest/README.md

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/oracle_linux_9/

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2010/09/20/oracle_own_linux/

[7] https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/exploring-ueknexts-kernel-configuration

[8] https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/exploring-ueknexts-kernel-configuration

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/14/oracles_love_and_hate_relationship/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/11/early_mysql_engineer_questions_whether/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/13/oracle_ceo_interview/

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/13/linux_kernel_69_released/

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2017/08/16/red_hat_banishes_btrfs_from_rhel/

[14] https://github.com/sched-ext/scx

[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/14/linux_ebpf/

[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=2ZofEQO@eIPMoaCk3qbqR0AAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[17] 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=44ZofEQO@eIPMoaCk3qbqR0AAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[18] https://www.theregister.com/2006/10/31/oracle_server_linux/

[19] https://www.theregister.com/2006/10/31/oracle_server_linux/

[20] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/14/oracle_suse_ciq_openela/

[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/