As of now, Linux kernel 6.11 has reached the end of its life. Users are encouraged to upgrade to Linux kernel 6.12, which is available in the stable repositories of various distributions including Arch Linux, Alpine Linux, and Nitrux.
Linux kernel 6.11 was released on September 15, 2024, and brought significant enhancements such as a new driver subsystem for Qualcomm Bluetooth/WLAN chips, support for getrandom() in vDSO on x86 systems, and virtual CPU hotplug support for AArch64. However, it was not a long-term support (LTS) release, resulting in a brief lifespan limited to eleven maintenance updates. The final update, version 6.11.11, was announced recently, with developer Greg Kroah-Hartman marking it as EOL (End of Life) and urging users to upgrade to the 6.12 series.
The newly released Linux kernel 6.12, dated November 17, 2024, comes with exciting features such as real-time “PREEMPT_RT” support, a new scheduler named sched_ext, DRM panic messages as QR codes, and improved support for NVIDIA’s virtual command queue implementation.
Notably, Linux kernel 6.12 has been designated as LTS and will receive security updates for a minimum of two years, extending through December 2026. Various distributions such as Arch Linux, Alpine Linux, and Nitrux have already adopted this kernel, with more distributions like openSUSE Tumbleweed and Fedora set to include it shortly.