Linux 6.12 becomes LTS, end of support for Linux 6.11, and Torvalds' criticism of x86-64 architecture

Linux 6.12 has been released as LTS

In early December, Linux 6.12 was announced as a long-term support (LTS) release. This kernel version, introduced by Linus Torvalds in November, has received many updates and will be the basis for many operating systems until the end of 2026.

Judging from experience, support for LTS versions can be extended for up to six years, making them preferable for corporate users and developers of long-term projects.

End of support for Linux 6.11

Project maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced that the support period for the Linux 6.11 kernel has ended. He urged all users to upgrade to the Linux 6.12 LTS kernel, which will now be supported until at least December 2026. The last patch for version 6.11 - 6.11.11 - was released on December 5, 2024, after which the branch was officially marked as EOL (End of Life) on the kernel.org website. This means that all updates, including security patches, will stop.

Torvalds: “x86-64 architecture feature levels are a broken model”

On December 4, 2024, Linus Torvalds harshly criticized the AMD64 and x86-64 architecture feature levels, calling them “completely broken model that needs to die.”

Torvalds expressed dissatisfaction with the current concept of classifying processor functions, which was introduced in 2020. It provides for the division of processor functions into levels (x86-64-v2, v3, v4) to simplify software optimization. However, according to Torvalds, this approach only increases confusion instead of making the process more transparent.

For example:

• x86-64-v2 adds support for SSE4.2, SSSE3, and other instructions useful for data manipulation and multithreading.
• x86-64-v3 includes AVX2 and additional instructions for bit manipulation.
• x86-64-v4 contains some elements of AVX-512.

Torvalds believes that the attempted linear progression of processor features within these levels is not true, and that complex changes to the Linux kernel configuration (KConfig) make development and optimization only more difficult.