The Linux Kernel 5.19 series has been released and is available for everyone. Let’s discuss the new features and explain how to download it. It is a significant branch that adds numerous new features, better hardware compatibility, and several bug and security improvements, according to Linus Torvalds.
A new user-space API for managing MultiPath TCP (MPTCP) flows, initial support for Loongson’s “LoongArch” RISC ISA CPU architecture, support for the ARM Scalable Matrix Extension, and support for ZSTD-compressed firmware files are all included in the Linux Kernel 5.19, which has been in development for more than two months (SME).
Linux Kernel 5.19 brings new security features
A new generic ticket spinlock type to add support for full qspinlock implementation in various architectures like RISC-V, OpenRISC, and C-SKY, as well as new FAN MARK EVICTABLE flag to the fanotify mechanism to prevent pinning the targeted inode in the inod are also available. Support for SMP coprocessors, KCSAN, and hibernation are also added to the Xtensa architecture.
In addition, Linux Kernel 5.19 adds support for storing billions of extended attributes with each inode, a virtual machine implementation for the m68k architecture based on the Android Goldfish emulator, and a new “logged attribute replay” feature that enables multiple extended file attributes to be changed simultaneously in an atomic manner in the XFS file system.
Additionally, the EROFS read-only file system has been modified to employ a new memory and the fscache layer to improve performance when running a large number of containers. The ability for the Kernel to regulate memory utilization when using Zswap, the ability to trace modules that poisoned the Kernel, and proactive reclaim interface to cause memory reclaim on a memory cgroup.
In terms of security, Linux Kernel 5.19 adds support for fs-verity file digests to the Integrity Measurement Architecture (IMA), improves the lockdown mode to stop privileged processes from altering Kernel memory without the Kernel’s permission, adds support for rules in the Landlock security module to control file renaming, adds a Clang-compiled structure randomization hardening feature, and further enhances the random-number generator.
“On a personal note, the most interesting part here is that I did the release (and am writing this) on an arm64 laptop. It’s something I’ve been waiting for for a long time, and it’s finally a reality, thanks to the Asahi team. We’ve had arm64 hardware around running Linux for a long time, but none of it has really been usable as a development platform until now,” said Linus Torvalds.
The Linux Kernel 5.19 also improves the SLUB memory allocator’s debugging infrastructure, the ability to store typed pointers in BPF maps, the io uring subsystem, and the x86 split-lock detection mechanism, among other things. Polled I/O support for the virtio-blk driver and handling ID-mapped mounts for the OverlayFS file system are also added.
Of course, Linux Kernel 5.19 also includes a ton of newly updated and new drivers to bring support for new gadgets, such as the Raspberry Pi Sense HAT joystick, the Mega World controller’s force feedback, the ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II, and the Google Whiskers touchpad.
Additionally, the NVIDIA Tegra 194 and other devices that can record timestamps in reaction to events are supported by Linux 5.19 thanks to the implementation of a new “hardware timestamp engine” subsystem.
How to download Linux Kernel 5.19?
Linux 5.19’s source tarball is currently available for download from the kernel.org website for those of you who enjoy building Kernels. Everyone else would have to hold off on updating their installations to the new Linux Kernel series until the maintainer of their distribution has upgraded the Kernel(s) to version 5.19.
Now that Linux Kernel 5.19 is out, the merge window for Linux Kernel 5.20 is now open. It appears, nevertheless, that Linus Torvalds will finally abandon the Linux 5.x series in favor of Linux 6.0.
“I’ll likely call it 6.0 since I’m starting to worry about getting confused by big numbers again,” stated Torvalds. If you are into Linux check out our Linux tty command settings guide!
