Ubuntu 12.10 To Target Linux 3.5 Kernel, Maybe 3.6

Ubuntu 12.10, the Quantal Quetzel, is likely to ship with the Linux 3.5 kernel. However, the Ubuntu kernel team will reserve the option to ship with Linux 3.6 if time and interest allows.

The decision coming out of the UDS-Q kernel meeting in Oakland on Monday was "Definitely go with 3.5, and tentatively look to 3.6. Will re-evaluate at the time 3.5 releases." With this being a non-LTS release, hopefully they will be aggressive and go with the Linux 3.6 kernel.

The Ubuntu 12.04.0 LTS kernel is shipping with Linux 3.2.

In semi-related news, there was also talk about Xen virtualization in Ubuntu 12.10 (notes). Xen 4.2 is being targeted for this October Ubuntu release with the xl tool-stack, support for Intel Supervisor Mode Execution Protection, PCI pass-through for Linux guests, EFI support, and documentation improvements. From Ubuntu 12.04 I have done AMD/Intel KVM vs. Xen virtualization benchmarks.