kernel

Linus Torvalds released Linux 7.2 on August 16, 2026, headlined by cache-aware CPU scheduling, default Btrfs large-folio support, and a raft of late-week DRM scheduling reverts.

Linus Torvalds tagged Linux 7.1 on June 14, 2026, adding a from-scratch in-kernel NTFS driver, switching Intel FRED to opt-out, and deleting roughly 140,000 lines of legacy code.

CVE-2026-43284 and CVE-2026-43500 chain two page-cache write primitives in IPsec ESP and rxrpc to give unprivileged users root on every major Linux distribution shipped in the last nine years.

CVE-2026-31431, discovered by Theori using its AI scanner Xint Code, lets unprivileged users root Ubuntu, Amazon Linux, RHEL, and SUSE through a logic flaw in the kernel's crypto subsystem.

Linux 7.0 arrives on April 12, graduating Rust from experimental status, introducing an extensible eBPF scheduler framework, and adding autonomous XFS repair capabilities.

Linux 7.0, expected in mid-April 2026, formally ends the three-year Rust experiment in the kernel. The decision, reached at the 2025 Maintainers Summit in Tokyo, promotes Rust from experimental status to a core kernel language alongside C and assembly.

Linus Torvalds confirms the next kernel will be 7.0, citing confusion over large numbers, as the first RC ships with one of the largest merge windows on record.

Linux 6.19 brings Rust into 'actual driver development' phase with I2C support and Nova GPU driver progress