01 October 2012, 07:52

Linux kernel 3.6 released

Kernel Log penguin Linus Torvalds has released version 3.6 of the Linux kernel. A major new feature for desktops and laptops is hybrid sleep, long supported by both Mac OS X and Windows. This involves writing the contents of the RAM to the hard drive prior to suspending to RAM, thus ensuring that the system is able to awake from suspend in the event of a power interruption.

Btrfs is still marked as experimental but now supports quotas for subvolumes. The new VFIO (virtual function I/O) userspace driver framework enables the KVM virtualisation subsystem to pass PCI and PCIe devices through to guest systems, allowing them to access these devices with low latencies and high data throughputs. Linux 3.6 also supports TCP Fast Open (TFO), an experimental TCP extension from Google.

An overview of these and other new features, along with a look forward at what changes will arrive in Linux 3.7, such as a framework for userspace drivers, can be found in The H feature: