14 DAY TRIAL // Linus Torvalds announced today the general availability of the Linux 5.4 kernel series, a major release that adds numerous new features, stronger security, and updated drivers for better hardware support.
Linux kernel 5.4 has been in development since early October and received a total of eight Release Candidate milestones, which implemented numerous new features starting with the initial support for Microsoft’s exFAT file system that’s now finally built-in in the kernel to offer users an out-of-the-box experience when connecting exFAT formatted drives.
Another major change introduced in Linux kernel 5.4 is the kernel lockdown feature, which is implemented as a Linux Security Module to restrict certain applications from accessing the kernel. It adds a new layer of protection, built in the kernel, to make it possible to run software as it was intended by its creator, thus blocking malicious actors.
There’s also good news news for AMD gamers, as Linux kernel 5.4 adds support for AMD Radeon Navi 12 and 14 GPUs, AMD Radeon Arcturus GPUs, as well as AMD Dali APU support. Moreover, AMD Ryzen 3000 series CPUs recieved temperature reporting support and the AMD EPYC microprocessors now have improved load balancing.
Other noteworthy features include support for Intel Tiger Lake CPUs, support for Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoCs, Intel Lightning Mountain SoC support, improved app memory management on Android, a new high-performance virtio driver for sharing files between hosts and guests called virtio-fs, a new security feature for detecting file tampering called fs-verity, and dm-clone for live cloning of block devices.
“This obviously opens the merge window for 5.5. It's not ideal timing with Thanksgiving week coming up, but it hopefully shouldn't be too much of an issue. If I fall behind (not because I'm all that big of a fan of the indiscriminate and relentless turkey-killing holiday) it's because we've got all three kids back for the holiday, and I might push some ot the merging to the second week as a result. We'll see what happens,” said Linus Torvalds.
Not yet ready for mass deployments
The Linux kernel 5.4 sources are available to download right now from kernel.org or through our free Linux software portal if you want to compile it yourself, something that’s only recommended to advanced users. The rest of the world should wait for the Linux 5.4 kernel packages to land in the stable software repositories of their favorite GNU/Linux distributions.
Also, please keep in mind that this is currently tagged as a “mainline” kernel branch, meaning that it’s still considered a pre-release version not yet ready for mass deployments. Linux kernel 5.4 will become “stable” and ready for mass adoption when the first point release hits the streets, which usually happens within a week or two from the official release.