After 8 release candidates, Linux Kernel 5.19 finally goes stable. Linus Torvalds announced the release last night:
It’s the third time I’m using Apple hardware for Linux development – I did it many years ago for powerpc development on a ppc970 machine. And then a decade+ ago when the Macbook Air was the only real thin-and-lite around. And now as an arm64 platform.
The new Kernel comes with initial support for LoongArch CPU. It’s a CPU architecture developed by Loongson, a company from China. However, it does not boot on the hardware, because some of the code not yet passing review.
Kernel 5.19 also features Apple M1 NVMe controller and Apple eFuse driver, though not contributed by Apple but open-source community. A 12-year effort is completed to allow one kernel to handle multiple ARM (ARMv4T/v5) platforms.
For Intel, Kernel 5.19 adds initial Linux graphics driver for Raptor Lake P (code-name of the 13th-generation processors). In-Field Scan (IFS), a hardware feature to run circuit level tests on a CPU core to detect problems that are not caught by parity or ECC checks. And, fix the issue that Intel laptop could be running hot and draining the battery faster.
There are also Zstd compressed firmware support for saving disk space, NTFS3 kernel driver fixes, VP8/VP9 codecs support, “native mode” for Lenovo ThinkPad TrackPoint II, Wacom pens support with three buttons.
Other features include:
- F1 ~ F12 keys working for Keychron C-Series/K-Series keyboards
- Google Whiskers Touchpad support.
- XP-PEN Star 06 support.
- Lenovo X12 trackpoint support.
- Armv9 Scalable Matrix Extension support
- Big TCP support.
- pureLiFi’s device driver.
- Raspberry Pi Sense HAT Joystick driver
How to Get Linux Kernel 5.19
It’s highly recommended to use the system’s default Kernel series that contain security updates and specific drivers from system developers.
However, if you insist on installing this Kernel release, here’s a step by step guide for Ubuntu & Fedora users.
Advanced users may also grab the source from Kernel web site and build yourself:
