Linux 6.8 Released As Stable With New Intel Xe Graphics Driver

Linus Torvalds has gone ahead and released Linux 6.8 as stable today rather than drawing this cycle into overtime.

Linux 6.8 has been heavier than normal on the commits but after calming down the past two weeks, Torvalds was comfortable enough today releasing Linux 6.8 rather than going for a 6.8-rc8 to allow an extra week of testing. Squeezing in during this final week of Linux 6.8 was support for a few new HP HyperX controllers and various other changes.

Torvalds also noted that the Linux Git tree is about to cross 10 million Git objects:

"In a sea of normality, one thing that stands out is a bit of random git numerology. This is the last mainline kernel to have less than ten million git objects. In fact, we're at 9.996 million objects, so we got really close to crossing that not-milestone if it hadn't been for the nice calming down in the last couple of weeks. Other trees - notably linux-next - obviously are already comfortably over that limit.

Of course, there is absolutely nothing special about it apart from a nice round number. Git doesn't care."

More commentary in his v6.8 release announcement.

See the Linux 6.8 feature overview to learn more about all of the interesting changes in this kernel. Linux 6.8 has some fun new optimizations, the experimental Intel Xe graphics driver, the in-kernel IAA accelerator driver, AMD WBRF support, and more. Linux 6.8 is what will be powering the likes of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Fedora 40, and other upcoming Linux distribution releases.

Now onward to the exciting Linux 6.9 cycle.