Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux 6.4 after two months of development. The new version contains several updates including support for creating a Kernel Worker from the user space, support for the Rust language, and support for Intel LAM mechanism. It also includes the ability to deduce memory pages, support for the usual ITRI in BPF, and the possibility of tracing user processes. The new release also features a new mechanism for managing the memory modules of the nucleus and prohibits the shutdown of Selinux during operation.
The latest version of the Linux kernel aims to provide better isolation and Rlimit restrictions to processors created from the user’s space. It also brings API for the safe initialization of attached data structures and new primitives of blocks, including locclasskey, lock/guard, mutex, and spinlock.
Moreover, the new version has adopted 16012 corrections from 2080 developers. The patch size of this version is 81 MB, which includes changes to 14220 files. The number of lines of code added is 1006924 while 597615 lines were removed. Approximately 43% of all changes featured in 6.4 are related to device drivers. 14% of the changes are related to updating hardware architecture-specific codes, and 10% of the changes are related to network glasses. Additionally, 4% of the changes are related to file systems and 3% with the internal nucleus subsystems.
The main innovations in the Linux 6.4 kernel include a possibility to create Kernel Worker from the user’s space, support for the Rust language, and support for Intel LAM mechanism. Other updates include the implementation of block primitives and the provision of types like aref. However, support for the Rust language is not active by default, and it does not bring Rust to include RUST among the mandatory assembly dependencies to the nucleus.
Overall, Linux 6.4 comes with a range of new features and updates that aim to improve efficiency, performance, and security. Developers can access the new version and take advantage of the added features to enhance their projects.