Linux 2.6.36-rc1 Kernel Released

While no release announcement has yet to work its way onto the Linux Kernel Mailing List, the Linux 2.6.36-rc1 kernel was tagged last night in Git by Linus Torvalds. As we have already shared in a number of articles, the Linux 2.6.36 kernel delivers on an exciting number of new features and other improvements.

Some of the features that were pushed into the mainline Linux kernel with 2.6.36-rc1 is AppArmor integration, many graphics DRM improvements (in fact, there were two pulls), and many other enhancements. When it comes to the graphics DRM in Linux 2.6.36 there is kernel mode-setting support (but no form of 2D/3D/video acceleration) for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 400 "Fermi" graphics cards via the reverse-engineered Nouveau DRM driver, R300 through R500 Hyper-Z support for ATI graphics cards, R600 through R700 tiling support for ATI hardware, and the Intel driver has more Embedded DisplayPort enhancements, among other changes.

What is lacking though from integration in the Linux 2.6.36 kernel is VIA's graphics DRM and the Reiser4 file-system.

We continue to benchmark the very latest Linux kernel code on a daily basis at kernel-tracker.phoromatic.com. We'll also be by with more separate tests to see what regressions may have been fixed for the Linux 2.6.36 kernel.