Today, Linus Torvalds announced the availability of the first Release Candidate (RC) for the upcoming Linux 6.15 kernel series, aimed at public testing. This milestone follows two weeks after the release of Linux kernel 6.14, and now that the merge window for 6.15 is closed, developers and users are encouraged to trial the RC versions weekly until the final release, expected in late May or early June 2025.
The 6.15 kernel introduces notable features such as Rust support for hrtimer, a new setcpuid= boot parameter for x86 CPUs, and enhancements to the x86 Intel and AMD PMU. Additional improvements include nested virtualization support for VGICv3 on ARM, emulation of FEAT_PMUv3 on Apple Silicon, and updates to the ACPI fan and button drivers for better state management and device notifications.
Torvalds highlighted that this release cycle has one of the larger merge windows, although not record-breaking. The patch includes substantial driver updates, with around two-thirds of changes relating to drivers and the remainder involving architecture updates and core kernel enhancements.
Users can download the Linux kernel 6.15 RC from Torvalds’ git tree or the kernel.org website. However, it’s important to remember that this version is not intended for production machines since it is still in the development phase.