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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Linux Kernel 6.8 Reaches End of Life, Users Should Upgrade to Linux Kernel 6.9 (9to5linux.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Feels like Linux 4.20 wasn't that long ago and we're already at Linux 6.9? At this rate Sex 2 will release and it won't even be exciting

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It does feel that way, but...

"Linux 4.20 was released on Sun, 23 Dec 2018"

About 5.5 years.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (2 children)

(6.9-4.2)/(2024-2018) = 0.45 "version increments" per year.

4.2/(2018-1991) = 0.15 "version increments" per year.

So, the pace of version increases in the past 6 years has been around triple the average from the previous 27 years, since Linux' first release.

I guess I can see why 6.9 would seem pretty dramatic for long-time Linux users.

I wonder whether development has actually accelerated, or if this is just a change in the approach to the release/versioning process.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

I wonder if development has actually accelerated, or if this is just a change in the approach to the release/versioning process

Both.

Development has increased, but you should use your comparison from the last 2.6 release.

It stayed on 2.6.y for 8 years - that was where it got stable enough that there wasn’t some major milestone to use as a new marker for its update number

There are cool new features, but if it followed the old versioning scheme, we’d still be on 2.6 because it hasn’t (intentionally) broken the API between the kernel and userspace

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Since version 4.0 the version numbers have nothing to do with changes and are strictly time based. Linux 5.0 happened after Linux 4.20 because Linus "ran out of hands and toes to count on", same thing with 6.0 after 5.19

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Wait. He lost a finger or toe???

Edit: more seriously it’s been since 3.0 after being on 2.6 forever

there are no special landmark features or incompatibilities related to the version number change, it's simply a way to drop an inconvenient numbering system

It used to only get bumped after a major new feature update, but it was stable enough at 2.6 that it got stuck there for 8 years, so he switched to a different update number