Late last month Linux creator Linus Torvalds had been considering publishing an eighth release candidate of the Linux 3.6 kernel, but on Sunday Torvalds decided to skip that step and launch the final version instead.
The Linux 3.6 kernel was released this week.
“A week passed, and things have been calm, and I honestly cannot see a major reason to do another rc,” Torvalds explained in the official announcement. “So here it is, 3.6 final. Sure, I’d have been happier with even fewer changes, but that just never happens. And holding off the release until people get too bored to send me the small stuff just makes the next merge window more painful.”
Changes included in Linux 3.6 are “too many to list,” Torvalds added. “There haven’t been any huge new architectures or filesystems, it’s all ‘solid progress.’ That may not sound all that exciting, but the devil is in the details, and there’s a lot of small fixes all over.”
Among the most visible features in this new release is a “hybrid sleep” capability much like what has long been offered by Microsoft Windows. Plenty of other goodies also promise to improve life for Linux users, however. Here’s a quick look at some of the highlights.