Linux kernel 3.0 is out

In the night from Thursday to Friday is version 3.0 of the Linux kernel released. The changes in the new kernel are less than the version number suggests: the most important change is this time the version number itself.

At the end of may appeared already a release candidate of version 3.0 of the Linux kernel, and now is the final version issued, so has Linus Torvalds on Google+ published. Although it is a significant increase in the version number – the previous version got number 2.6.39 – contains the new kernel a few large changes.

Initially stood Linux 3.0, even if 2.6.40 on the plan, however, Torvalds thought that the version number is to high, would go up. The first Linux 2.6 version came out over seven years ago and since then the sequence number is always incremented. Incidentally, there are still updates in the 2.4-branch.

Kernel version 3.0 includes support for new Intel hardware like Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge cpus. Also, there is quite tinkered with the still experimental btrfs file system, and there are new drivers added to the kernel. Among others, Ubuntu 11.10, which comes out in October, will the new Linux kernel on-board.