It’s time to say goodbye to the Linux 5.18 kernel series, as the kernel.org website has marked it as EOL (End-of-Life).
Linux kernel 5.18 was released in late May 2022 and is another short-lived kernel series. It introduces new features such as support for tracking “user events” on the system, support for AMD’s “host system management port” feature, support for 64-bit integrity checksums on NVMe devices, support for Intel’s “hardware feedback interface, and as indirect branch tracking support for the x86 architecture.
kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman recently released Linux kernel 5.18.19, which appears to be a very minor patch containing only six changes. Most importantly, Linux kernel 5.18.19 is also the last maintenance release of the Linux 5.17 kernel series, which is now end of life and will no longer receive security and bug fix updates.
Officials are urging users to upgrade to the Linux 5.19 kernel series. GNU / Linux distribution maintainers and users who prefer to compile their own kernel can now get the latest Linux 5.19 kernel from the kernel.org website, but keep in mind that this is also a short-lived branch that may be supported until late October 2022.
Several popular rolling release distributions already run Linux kernel 5.19, including Arch Linux and openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Ubuntu users can easily install Linux kernel 5.19 from the Ubuntu Kernel Mainline PPA. If you don’t want to upgrade the kernel every few months, you can stick to the Long Term Support (LTS) branch, such as Linux 5.15 LTS.
