Linux Kernel 6.16 Released with Minor Fixes

It's a rare occasion that a Linux kernel is released without any blockbuster features, but 6.16 certainly has broken that mold. The most impressive thing about this latest kernel is its size, at over 38 million lines of code that span over 78,000 files.

That doesn't mean the latest kernel is without new additions. First off, the kernel has even more Rust integration, such as bindings for the driver core and PCI subsystem. Rust is also now integrated into the Direct Rendering Management (DRM) system for ioctl, file/GEM memory management, and infrastructure for device drivers of major GPU vendors.

There are also improvements to the XFS filesystem, adding support for large atomic writes to help prevent data write errors. Even the ext4 filesystem gets some love in 6.16 with faster commit paths, large folio support, and atomic multi-fsblock writes for the bigalloc filesystem. These filesystem improvements could bring roughly a 37 percent performance increase for sequential I/O workloads.

For end users, one really cool addition is the ability to now stream audio over USB, even once a system goes into sleep mode.

As far as security is concerned, 6.16 adds support for Intel's Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) as well as Intel's Trusted Domain Extensions (TDX). In addition, support for AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization and Secure Memory Extensions has been improved. All of this comes together to make it possible to employ confidential computing, which allows the encryption of software memory and even boosts cloud security by encrypting virtual machine memory.

You can read all about kernel 6.16 in Linus Torvald's official release statement.