Linux kernel version history

For broader coverage of this topic, see History of Linux.

This article documents the version history of the Linux kernel, a free, open-source and Unix-like kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide.

Since the Linux kernel's creation by Linus Torvalds in 1991, it grew rapidly as many developers contributed to the project. The kernel became self-hosting as the version 0.11 in Decemember 1991. Linux 1.0.0 was released in March 1994, with more than 170,000 lines of code.

The most recent release of the Linux kernel is 6.17, released on 28 September 2025.

Explanation

Each major version – identified by the first two numbers of a release version – is designated one of the following levels of support:

• Supported until next stable version and 3 months after that
• Long-term support (LTS); maintained for a few years^[1]
• Super-long-term support (SLTS); maintained for many more years by the Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP)^[2]

Overview

Releases 6.x.y

Version	Original release date	Last release	Maintainer	EOL	Prominent features	Notes
Preview version: 6.18	TBA	6.18-rc2[3]	Linus Torvalds
Latest version: 6.17	28 September 2025[4]	6.17.5[5]	Greg Kroah-Hartman
Unsupported: 6.16	27 Jul 2025[6]	6.16.12[7]		12 October 2025
Unsupported: 6.15	25 May 2025[8]	6.15.11[9]		20 August 2025	Btrfs: fast Zstd compression support[10]
Unsupported: 6.14	24 March 2025[11]	6.14.11[12]		10 June 2025[13]	Improved Wine speed[14][15] Copilot key support[16]
Unsupported: 6.13	20 January 2025[17]	6.13.12[18]		20 April 2025[19]	New handheld support Intel Arc B series support
Supported: 6.12	17 November 2024[20]	6.12.55[18]		December 2036	Real-time support for x86/x86_64, RISC-V, and ARM64[21] Userspace scheduler extensions support[22] QR codes for DRM panic messages[21]	25th LTS release[12] 5th SLTS with 10 years of support through 2035.[23] Used in Debian 13 "Trixie"[24][25] and RHEL 10.0 [26]
Unsupported: 6.11	15 September 2024[27]	6.11.11[28]		5 December 2024[28]	Atomic writes support for buffered I/O[29] Dedicated bucket slab allocator to help protect against heap spraying[30] vDSO implementation of getrandom()[30]
Unsupported: 6.10	14 July 2024[31]	6.10.14[18]	Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin	10 October 2024[32]	Memory-allocation profiling[33] Encrypted interactions with trusted platform modules[33]	Named "Baby Opossum Posse"[34]
Unsupported: 6.9	12 May 2024[1]	6.9.10[18]		27 July 2024[35]	Improved performance for Intel Core Ultra (Meteor Lake)[36] Support for AMD P-State Preferred Cores[36] Intel FRED (Flexible Return Event Delivery)[36] Support for larger console frame-buffer fonts for 4K displays[36] Faster boot times for systems with lots of RAM and using HugeTLBs[36] DM VDO (Device Mapper Virtual Data Optimizer) mainlined[36] Hibernate LZ4 compression support[37]
Unsupported: 6.8	10 March 2024[1]	6.8.12[18]		30 May 2024[38]
Unsupported: 6.7	8 January 2024[1]	6.7.12[18]		3 April 2024	Initial Bcachefs filesystem support[39] Itanium support removed[39] Intel Meteor Lake Graphics declared stable[39] Initial Nouveau support for Nvidia GSP firmware[39] Ability to disable IA-32 support at boot time on AMD64[40] Expansion of AMD Seamless Boot Support[40] Improvement in loading of x86 microcode[40] Support for RAID stripe tree, simple quota accounting, and temporary FSID added to Btrfs[41] JFS minor stability improvements[40]	According to Linus Torvalds, "one of the largest kernel releases we've ever had"[39]
Supported: 6.6	29 October 2023[1]	6.6.114[18]		December 2026	The new EEVDF process scheduler was merged. It aims to replace the CFS scheduler. Intel Shadow Stack was finally merged; Exploiting ROPs is now harder Support for Partial SMT Performance Improvement for CPUs with a lot of cores and shared Last Level Caches Continued Intel Meteor Lake graphics and sound enablement/improvements. Better performance for Ext4; IO_uring also seeing cool improvements DEFLATE compression support for EROFS.	24th LTS release The CFS scheduler was the de facto standard for 16+ years ReiserFS is now declared to be obsolete and flagged for removal in 2025. The one last minute change was made to the credits of ReiserFS as requested from the original developer.
Unsupported: 6.5	27 August 2023[1]	6.5.13[18]		28 November 2023[42]	Initial USB4 v2.0 support[43] MIDI 2.0 support[43]
Unsupported: 6.4	25 June 2023[1]	6.4.16[18]		13 September 2023[44]	Intel Linear Address Masking[45] Partial support for Apple M2[46] Autonomous frequency and power control on AMD Zen architecture CPUs[47] Support for RISC-V hibernation on future laptops[46] Improvements for LoongArch CPU architecture[46] Further Intel Meteor Lake Graphics development[46] 4K resolution support for Rockchip Direct Rendering Manager driver[46] Better AMDgpu support for the Steam Deck[46] Optimizations to EROFS, Btrfs, F2FS, NTFS, and Ext4[46] Support for Intel Lunar Lake HD Audio[46] Continued Wi-Fi 7 development[46] Quality of life improvements for Apple silicon users[46] Further Rust up-streaming to support the first Rust drivers[46] Removal of SLOB memory allocator[46]
Unsupported: 6.3	23 April 2023[1]	6.3.13[18]		11 July 2023[48]	Even more Rust in the kernel Initial Support for Intel Meteor Lake Display Intel Meteor Lake VPUs ("Versatile Processing Unit") support AMD Automatic IBRS Intel TPMI driver was merged, hopes are this will give more control over power management. Big Performance Improvement for EXT4. Nice Improvements for BTRFS too IPv4 BIG TCP support, maybe better network performance Microsoft Hyper-V nested hypervisor support. Faster kernel builds and with lower peak memory use. Removed support for the Intel ICC compiler.
Unsupported: 6.2	19 February 2023[1]	6.2.16[18]		17 May 2023[49]	Intel Arc drivers are now deemed "stable" and on by default. Initial FOSS support for NVIDIA GeForce 30 Series. But performance is poor for now. Support for Apple's M1 Call Depth Tracking as a better performance alternative to IBRS for older Intel CPUs Some Power-savings improvements when the system is idle or lightly loaded. Support for running Raspberry Pi in 4K@60Hz Better performance and scalability for running RAID5/6 in btrfs-like systems More Rust in the kernel
Supported: 6.1	11 December 2022[50]	6.1.157[18]		December 2027[1] August 2033[51]	Support for writing kernel modules in Rust[52] Multi-Gen LRU page reclaiming[53] (not yet enabled by default) Btrfs performance improvements[54] Support for more sound hardware Improved support for game controllers[55]	23rd LTS release Used in Debian 12 "Bookworm"[56] 4th SLTS release (which CIP[57] is planning[51] to support until August 2033) 6.1.28 is named Curry Ramen[58]
Unsupported: 6.0	2 October 2022[59]	6.0.19[60]		January 2023[60]	Performance improvements on Intel Xeon 'Ice Lake', AMD Ryzen 'Threadripper', AMD EPYC[61] New hardware support including Intel, AMD, Qualcomm[62]	Named "Hurr durr I'ma [sic] ninja sloth"[63]
Legend: Unsupported Supported Latest version Preview version Future version

Releases 5.x.y

Version	Original release date	Last release	Maintainer	EOL	Prominent features	Notes
Unsupported: 5.19	31 July 2022[64]	5.19.17[65]	Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin[1]	October 2022[65]	Initial support for LoongArch[66][67] Support for Big TCP[66][67] More secure encrypted virtualization with AMD SEV-SNP and Intel TDX[66][67] Armv9 Scalable Matrix Extension support[67] Introduce Intel In-Field Scan driver to run targeted low level diagnostics outside of the CPU's architectural error detection capabilities[66] a.out support removed[68]
Unsupported: 5.18	22 May 2022[69]	5.18.19[70]		August 2022[70]	Support for Indirect Branch Tracking[71] on Intel CPUs[72] User events[73] fprobe, for probing multiple functions with a single probe handler[74] Headers rearchitecturing preparations for faster compilation times[75] Stricter memcpy() compile-time bounds checking[76] Switch to C11[77]
Unsupported: 5.17	20 March 2022[78]	5.17.15[79]		June 2022[79]	BPF CO-RE support[80][81] Random number generator improvements[82] New Real-Time Linux Analysis (RTLA) tool[83] Support giving names to anonymous memory[84] Mitigate straight-line speculation attacks[85]	Used in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on newer hardware[86] Named Superb Owl[87]
Unsupported: 5.16	9 January 2022[88]	5.16.20[89]		April 2022[89]	New futex_waitv() system call for faster game performance[90] Memory folios infrastructure for a faster memory management[91] Add support for AMX instructions[92] Improve write congestion[93]
Supported: 5.15	31 October 2021[94]	5.15.195[18]		December 2026[1]	New experimental[95] NTFS file system implementation ksmbd, an in-kernel SMB 3 server Migrate memory pages to persistent memory in lieu of discard[96] DAMON, a data access monitor Introduce process_mrelease(2) system call[97]	22nd LTS release; used in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Slackware 15,[98] UEK 7[99] Named Trick or Treat[100]
Unsupported: 5.14	29 August 2021[101]	5.14.21[102]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	November 2021[102]		Used in RHEL 9.x and derivatives[103] (Redhat ignores LTS-Kernel, own kernel-backports) and SLE 15 SP4/openSUSE Leap 15.4
Unsupported: 5.13	27 June 2021[104]	5.13.19[105]	Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin	September 2021[105]	Support for Zstd compressed modules[106] Landlock Linux security module[107]	Named Opossums on Parade
Unsupported: 5.12	25 April 2021[108]	5.12.19[109]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	July 2021[109]		Named Frozen Wasteland[110][111]
Unsupported: 5.11	14 February 2021[112]	5.11.22[113]		May 2021[113]		Named "💕 Valentine's Day Edition 💕"[114]
Supported: 5.10	13 December 2020[115]	5.10.245[18]	Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin[1]	December 2026[1][116] January 2031[51]	Support for ARM64 memory tagging extension (MTE)[117]	21st LTS release; used in Debian 11 "Bullseye"[118] 3rd SLTS release (which CIP[119] is planning[51] to support until January 2031) Named "Dare mighty things"[120]
Unsupported: 5.9	11 October 2020[121]	5.9.16[122]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	December 2020[122]
Unsupported: 5.8	2 August 2020[123]	5.8.18[124]		November 2020[124]
Unsupported: 5.7	31 May 2020[125]	5.7.19[126]		August 2020[126]
Unsupported: 5.6	29 March 2020[127]	5.6.19[128]		June 2020[128]	Initial USB4 support[129] Year 2038 fix for 32-bit systems[129] WireGuard
Unsupported: 5.5	26 January 2020[130]	5.5.19[131]		April 2020[131]
Supported: 5.4	24 November 2019[132]	5.4.300[18]	Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin[1]	December 2025[1]		20th LTS release, used in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4-rc2 is named Nesting Opossum[133] 5.4-rc5 is named Kleptomaniac Octopus[134]
Unsupported: 5.3	15 September 2019[135]	5.3.18[136]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	December 2019[136]
Unsupported: 5.2	7 July 2019[137]	5.2.20[138]		October 2019[138]		5.2-rc2 is named Golden Lions[139][140] 5.2 is named Bobtail Squid[141]
Unsupported: 5.1	5 May 2019[142]	5.1.21[143]		July 2019[143]	io_uring API, a new way to do asynchronous I/O (AIO),[144] the older API/interface "aio" had problems and performance issues.
Unsupported: 5.0	3 March 2019[145]	5.0.21[146]		June 2019[146]
Legend: Unsupported Supported Latest version Preview version Future version

Releases 4.x.y

Version	Original release date	Last release	Maintainer	EOL	Prominent features	Notes
Unsupported: 4.20	23 December 2018[147]	4.20.17[148]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	March 2019[148]		Named Shy Crocodile[149]
Supported: 4.19	22 October 2018[150]	4.19.325[18] 4.19.325-cip124[151]	Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin[1] Ulrich Hecht & Pavel Machek[51]	December 2024[1][152] January 2029[51]		19th LTS release. Used in Debian 10 "Buster".[153] Second SLTS release (which CIP is planning[51] to support until January 2029), and first with ARM64 support.[154] Named "People's Front"[155]
Unsupported: 4.18	12 August 2018[156]	4.18.20[157]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	November 2018[157]		RHEL 8.x (Redhat ignores LTS-Kernel, own kernel-backports)
Unsupported: 4.17	3 June 2018[158]	4.17.19[159]		August 2018[159]		Named Merciless Moray[160]
Unsupported: 4.16	1 April 2018[161]	4.16.18[162]		June 2018[162]
Unsupported: 4.15	28 January 2018[163]	4.15.18[164]		April 2018[164]		Used in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Unsupported: 4.14	12 November 2017[165]	4.14.336[166]	Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin[1]	January 2024[166]	Zstd compression for Btrfs and Squashfs[167]	18th LTS release 4.14.1 is named Petit Gorille[168]
Unsupported: 4.13	3 September 2017[169]	4.13.16[170]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	November 2017[170]
Unsupported: 4.12	2 July 2017[171]	4.12.14[172]		September 2017[172]	BFQ I/O scheduler[173] Kyber I/O scheduler[173] USB-C support[173]
Unsupported: 4.11	30 April 2017[174]	4.11.12[175]		July 2017[175]
Unsupported: 4.10	19 February 2017[176]	4.10.17[177]		May 2017[177]		4.10-rc5 was named Anniversary Edition[178] 4.10-rc6 was named Fearless Coyote[179]
Unsupported: 4.9	11 December 2016[180]	4.9.337[18]	Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin[1]	January 2023[1][181]		17th LTS release. Used in Debian 9 "Stretch".[182] Named Roaring Lionus[183][184]
Unsupported: 4.8	25 September 2016[185]	4.8.17[186]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	January 2017[186]
Unsupported: 4.7	24 July 2016[187]	4.7.10[188]		October 2016[188]	Schedutil governor[189] Async discard support[190] EFI bootloader control driver[191]	Named Psychotic Stoned Sheep[192]
Unsupported: 4.6	15 May 2016[193]	4.6.7[194]		August 2016[194]		Named Charred Weasel[195]
Unsupported: 4.5	13 March 2016[196]	4.5.7[197]		June 2016[198]
Supported: 4.4	10 January 2016[199]	4.4.302[200] 4.4.302-cip103[151]	Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin[1] Ulrich Hecht & Pavel Machek[51]	February 2022[200] January 2027[51]		16th LTS release, used in Slackware 14.2.[201] Canonical provided extended support until April 2021.[202] As the first kernel selected for Super Long Term Support (SLTS), the Civil Infrastructure Platform will provide support until at least 2026.[2] Used in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Unsupported: 4.3	1 November 2015[203]	4.3.6[204]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	February 2016[205]		Named Blurry Fish Butt[206][207]
Unsupported: 4.2	30 August 2015[208]	4.2.8[209]		December 2015[209]		Canonical provided extended support until July 2016.[210][211]
Unsupported: 4.1	22 June 2015[212]	4.1.52[213]	Sasha Levin[1][214] (formerly Greg Kroah-Hartman)[215]	May 2018[213]		15th LTS release. 4.1.1 was named Series 4800[216]
Unsupported: 4.0	12 April 2015[217]	4.0.9[218]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	July 2015[219]	Initial live patching support[220] lazytime mount option[220]	Named "Hurr durr I'ma [sic] sheep"[221] (Internet poll)
Legend: Unsupported Supported Latest version Preview version Future version

Releases 3.x.y

The jump from 2.6.x to 3.x wasn't because of a breaking update, but rather the first release of a new versioning scheme introduced as a more convenient system.^[222]

Version	Original release date	Last release	Maintainer	EOL	Prominent features	Notes
Unsupported: 3.19	8 February 2015[223]	3.19.8[224]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	May 2015[224]		Canonical provided extended support until July 2016.[210][225]
Unsupported: 3.18	7 December 2014[226]	3.18.140[227]	Greg Kroah-Hartman[228] (formerly Sasha Levin[229]) (formerly Greg Kroah-Hartman)	January 2017[230]	OverlayFS[231] eBPF[232] DCTCP support[231]	14th LTS release, named Diseased Newt[233]
Unsupported: 3.17	5 October 2014[234]	3.17.8[235]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	January 2015[235]
Unsupported: 3.16	3 August 2014[236]	3.16.85[237]	Ben Hutchings[1][238] (formerly Greg Kroah-Hartman)	Maintained until October 2014, then May 2016 to June 2020[237][1][239]		13th LTS release. Was used in Debian 8 "Jessie".[240] Canonical provided extended support until April 2016.[210][241] 3.16.1 was named Museum of Fishiegoodies[242]
Unsupported: 3.15	8 June 2014[243]	3.15.10[244]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	August 2014[244]	LZ4 compression support for zram[245]
Unsupported: 3.14	30 March 2014[246]	3.14.79[247]	Greg Kroah-Hartman[1]	August 2016[247]	zram support[248]	12th LTS release, named Shuffling Zombie Juror[249]
Unsupported: 3.13	19 January 2014[250]	3.13.11[251]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	April 2014[251]		Canonical provided extended support until April 2016.[210][252] Named One Giant Leap for Frogkind[253] (NASA LADEE launch photo)[254] Used in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Unsupported: 3.12	3 November 2013[255]	3.12.74[256]	Jiří Slabý[1][257] (formerly Greg Kroah-Hartman)	May 2017[257][256]		11th LTS release, named Suicidal Squirrel[258]
Unsupported: 3.11	2 September 2013[259]	3.11.10[260]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	November 2013[260]	zswap support[261]	Canonical provided extended support until August 2014.[210] Named Linux for Workgroups after the 20 years of Windows 3.11[262]
Unsupported: 3.10	30 June 2013[263]	3.10.108[264]	Willy Tarreau[1][265] (formerly Greg Kroah-Hartman)	November 2017[264]	bcache support[266]	10th LTS release, 3.10.6 was named TOSSUG Baby Fish[267][268][269] used in Slackware 14.1[270] RHEL 7.x
Unsupported: 3.9	28 April 2013[271]	3.9.11[272]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	July 2013[272]	dm-cache support[273] suspend-freeze[274] Intel P-state support[275]	3.9.6 was named Black Squirrel Wakeup Call[276]
Unsupported: 3.8	18 February 2013[277]	3.8.13[278]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	May 2013[278]	F2FS file system[279] i386 support removed[280]	Canonical provided extended support until August 2014.[210][281] Named Unicycling Gorilla[282][283] 3.8.5 was named Displaced Humerus Anterior[284]
Unsupported: 3.7	10 December 2012[285]	3.7.10[286]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	March 2013[286][287]	ARM64 support[288]	Named Terrified Chipmunk[289][290]
Unsupported: 3.6	30 September 2012[291]	3.6.11[292]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	December 2012[292]	Initial support of send/receive and sub-volume quotas for Btrfs[293]
Unsupported: 3.5	21 July 2012[294]	3.5.7[295]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	October 2012[295]		Canonical provided extended support until April 2014.[210][296]
Unsupported: 3.4	20 May 2012[297][298]	3.4.113[299]	Li Zefan[1][300] (formerly Greg Kroah-Hartman)	October 2016[301]		9th LTS release
Unsupported: 3.3	18 March 2012[302]	3.3.8[303]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	June 2012[303]
Unsupported: 3.2	4 January 2012[304]	3.2.102[305]	Ben Hutchings[1][306]	May 2018[307]		8th LTS release, used in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS[308] and optionally in 12.04 ESM,[309] Debian 7 "Wheezy" and Slackware 14.0.[1][306] Canonical promised to (at least) provide long-term support until April 2017;[210] Support has continued for months after. 3.2 to 3.5 was named Saber-toothed Squirrel[310]
Unsupported: 3.1	24 October 2011[311]	3.1.10[312]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	January 2012[312]		3.1 provided the base for real-time tree. 3.1-rc2 was named Wet Seal 3.1 was named Divemaster Edition[313] (Linus' diving activities)
Unsupported: 3.0	21 July 2011[222]	3.0.101[314]	Greg Kroah-Hartman[315]	October 2013[314][315]	Btrfs: automatic defragmentation and scrubbing support[316]	7th LTS release Named Sneaky Weasel[317][318]
Legend: Unsupported Supported Latest version Preview version Future version

Releases 2.6.x.y

Versions 2.6.16 and 2.6.27 of the Linux kernel were unofficially given long-term support (LTS),^[319] before a 2011 working group in the Linux Foundation started a formal long-term support initiative.^[320][321]

Version	Original release date	Last release	Maintainer	EOL	Prominent features	Notes
Unsupported: 2.6.39	18 May 2011[322]	2.6.39.4[323]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	August 2011[323]		Last stable release of the 2.6 kernel series
Unsupported: 2.6.38	14 March 2011[324]	2.6.38.8[325]		June 2011[325]		Named Flesh-Eating Bats with Fangs[326]
Unsupported: 2.6.37	4 January 2011[327]	2.6.37.6[328]		March 2011[328]
Unsupported: 2.6.36	20 October 2010[329]	2.6.36.4[330]		February 2011[330]	AppArmor security module[331]
Unsupported: 2.6.35	1 August 2010[332]	2.6.35.14[333]	Andi Kleen[334]	March 2012[334]		6th LTS release 2.6.35.7 was named Yokohama
Unsupported: 2.6.34	16 May 2010[335]	2.6.34.15[336]	Paul Gortmaker[337]	February 2014[336][337]		5th LTS release It was named Sheep on Meth[338][339]
Unsupported: 2.6.33	24 February 2010[340]	2.6.33.20[341]	Greg Kroah-Hartman[342]	November 2011[341]	nouveau driver[343]	4th LTS release. It was the base for real-time-tree, replaced by 3.0.x.[342]
Unsupported: 2.6.32	2 December 2009[344]	2.6.32.71[345]	Willy Tarreau[1][346] (formerly Greg Kroah-Hartman)[347][348]	March 2016[1]	Kernel same-page merging (KSM)[349]	3rd LTS release, used in Debian 6 Squeeze.[350] Canonical also provided support until April 2015.[210] RHEL 6.x
Unsupported: 2.6.31	9 September 2009[351]	2.6.31.14[352]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	July 2010[352]	USB 3.0 support[353]
Unsupported: 2.6.30	9 June 2009[354]	2.6.30.9[355]		October 2009[355]	Tomoyo Linux security module[356]	2.6.30-rc4–2.6.30-rc6 was named Vindictive Armadillo[357][358] Releases between 2.6 and 2.9 were named 2.Man-Eating Seals of Antiquity[359]
Unsupported: 2.6.29	23 March 2009[360]	2.6.29.6[361]		July 2009[361]	Btrfs support[362]	Named Temporary Tasmanian Devil[363][364]
Unsupported: 2.6.28	24 December 2008[365]	2.6.28.10[366]		May 2009[366]	ext4 stable support[367]	2.6.28-rc1–2.6.28-rc6 was named Killer Bat of Doom[368][369] 2.6.28 was named Erotic Pickled Herring[370]
Unsupported: 2.6.27	9 October 2008[371]	2.6.27.62[372]	Willy Tarreau[373] (formerly Adrian Bunk,[374] and formerly Greg Kroah-Hartman)	March 2012[374]		2nd LTS release 2.6.27.3 was named Trembling Tortoise[375]
Unsupported: 2.6.26	13 July 2008[376]	2.6.26.8[377]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	November 2008[377]		2.6.26–2.6.27 was named Rotary Wombat[378]
Unsupported: 2.6.25	16 April 2008[379]	2.6.25.20[380]		November 2008[380]	Smack Linux security module[381]	Named Funky Weasel is Jiggy wit it[382]
Unsupported: 2.6.24	24 January 2008[383]	2.6.24.7[384]		May 2008[384]	cgroups support[385]	2.6.23-rc4–2.6.23-rc6 was named Pink Farting Weasel[386] 2.6.23-rc7–2.6.23–2.6.24 was named Arr Matey! A Hairy Bilge Rat![387] (TLAPD 2007) 2.6.24.1 was named Err Metey! A Heury Beelge-a Ret![388]
Unsupported: 2.6.23	9 October 2007[389]	2.6.23.17[390]		February 2008[390]	CFS process scheduler[391]
Unsupported: 2.6.22	8 July 2007[392]	2.6.22.19[393]		February 2008[393]	New 802.11 (Wi-Fi) stack[394] SLUB memory allocator[394]	2.6.22-rc3–2.6.22-rc4 was named Jeff Thinks I Should Change This, But To What? 2.6.22-rc5–2.6.22 was named Holy Dancing Manatees, Batman![395]
Unsupported: 2.6.21	25 April 2007[396]	2.6.21.7[397]		August 2007[397]	GPIO support[398] Dynticks[398]	Named Nocturnal Monster Puppy[399]
Unsupported: 2.6.20	4 February 2007[400]	2.6.20.21[401]		October 2007[401]	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)[402]	Named Homicidal Dwarf Hamster[403][404]
Unsupported: 2.6.19	29 November 2006[405]	2.6.19.7[406]		March 2007[406]	AHCI support[407][408] GFS2[409]	Named Avast! A bilge rat! (TLAPD 2006)[410]
Unsupported: 2.6.18	20 September 2006[411]	2.6.18.8[412]		February 2007[412] 2.6.18: RHEL 5.x	NCQ and SATA hotplug support[413]
Unsupported: 2.6.17	17 June 2006[414]	2.6.17.14[415]		October 2006[415]	splice()[416]	2.6.17-rc5 was named Lordi Rules[417] (Eurovision 2006 winners)[418] 2.6.17-rc6–2.6.17 was named Crazed Snow-Weasel[419]
Unsupported: 2.6.16	20 March 2006[420]	2.6.16.62[421]	Adrian Bunk[422] (formerly Greg Kroah-Hartman)[347]	July 2008[423][421]	OCFS2 support[424] SLOB memory allocator[424]	1st LTS release 2.6.16.28-rc2 was named Stable Penguin
Unsupported: 2.6.15	2 January 2006[425]	2.6.15.7[426]	Greg Kroah-Hartman	May 2006[426]	S.M.A.R.T. support[427]	Named Sliding Snow Leopard[428]
Unsupported: 2.6.14	27 October 2005[429]	2.6.14.7[430]		January 2006[430]	FUSE support[431]	Named Affluent Albatross[432]
Unsupported: 2.6.13	28 August 2005[433]	2.6.13.5[434]		December 2005[434]	initramfs[435]	Named Woozy Numbat[436][437]The 2.6.12 release was the first one managed by Git.[438]
Unsupported: 2.6.12	18 June 2005[439]	2.6.12.6[440][441]		August 2005[440]
Unsupported: 2.6.11	2 March 2005[442]	2.6.11.12[443]		June 2005[443]
Unsupported: 2.6.10	24 December 2004[444]				Switchable and modular I/O schedulers[445]
Unsupported: 2.6.9	19 October 2004[446]
Unsupported: 2.6.8	14 August 2004[447]
Unsupported: 2.6.7	16 June 2004[448]
Unsupported: 2.6.6	10 May 2004[449]				CFQ I/O scheduler[450] Laptop mode[450]
Unsupported: 2.6.5	4 April 2004[451]				Adaptive lazy readahead[452]
Unsupported: 2.6.4	11 March 2004[453]				Intel x86-64 support[454] ARMv6 support[454] Virtual console UTF-8 mode support[454]
Unsupported: 2.6.3	18 February 2004[455]				Power Mac G5 support[456]
Unsupported: 2.6.2	4 February 2004[457]				RAID 6 support[458]
Unsupported: 2.6.1	9 January 2004[459]				EFI support[460]
Unsupported: 2.6	17 December 2003[461]		Linus Torvalds	December 2004[462]	O(1) scheduler[463] Preemption (2.5.4)[464] Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA)[463] SELinux security module[465]	2.6.2–2.6.4 was named Feisty Dunnart[466] 2.6.5–2.6.9 was named Zonked Quokka[467]2.6.9: RHEL 4.x The 2.5 kernels were development kernels[468]
Legend: Unsupported Supported Latest version Preview version Future version

Releases before 2.6.0

Version	Original release date	Last release	Maintainer	EOL	Prominent features	Notes
Unsupported: 2.4	4 January 2001[469]	2.4.37.11[470]	Willy Tarreau (formerly Marcelo Tosatti)	December 2011[470]	JFS support (2.4.24)[471] XFS support (2.4.20)[471] ext3 support (2.4.15)[472] ReiserFS support (2.4.1)[471] tmpfs support[473] GFS support[473] Netfilter (2.3.15)[474]	The 2.3 kernels were development kernels[468] 2.4.9: RHEL 2.1 2.4.10: Featured a complete rewrite of the Virtual Memory Management (VMM) subsystem.[475] 2.4.21: RHEL 3.x
Unsupported: 2.2	26 January 1999[476]	2.2.26[477]	Marc-Christian Petersen (formerly Alan Cox)[478]	Made unofficially obsolete with the 2.2.27-rc2[479][480]	USB devices support[481] Frame-buffer console[482] ipchains[474] Video4Linux[482] NTFS (readonly), FAT32 and HFS support[482] Initial IPv6 support[482] SPX support[482] Loop device support[482] Scheduling classes and scheduler SMP support[483] SLAB memory allocator[484]	The 2.1 kernels were development kernels[468]
Unsupported: 2.0	9 June 1996[485]	2.0.40[486]	David Weinehall	officially made obsolete with the kernel 2.2.0 release[487]	Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) support[488]	Larry Ewing created the Tux mascot in 1996
Unsupported: 1.3	12 June 1995	1.3.100[489]	Linus Torvalds	EOL	/dev/random[490] watchdog timer[491] Automatic modules loading[492] initrd boot support[493] bzImage support[494]	Greased Weasel[495]
Unsupported: 1.2	7 March 1995	1.2.13			Round-robin scheduling[483]	Linux '95[496]
Unsupported: 1.1	6 April 1994	1.1.95			ipfw[497] Dual IDE interface support[498] ATAPI CD-ROM support[498]
Unsupported: 1.0	14 March 1994	1.0.9			Open Sound System (OSS)[499] NTP support[499]
Unsupported: 0.99	13 December 1992	0.99.15j[500]			Xiafs support ext2 support[501] NFS support[502] kmalloc[484]	The Linux 0.99 tar.bz2 archive grew from 426 kB to 1009 kB on the way to 1.0.
Unsupported: 0.98	29 September 1992	0.98.6[503]			TCP/IP support[502] SCSI tape support[504] ISO 9660 support[504]
Unsupported: 0.97	1 August 1992	0.97.6[505]			Initial procfs[506] PS/2 mouse support[506] Microsoft bus mouse support[507] SCSI CD-ROM support[508]
Unsupported: 0.96	22 May 1992	0.96c.2[509]			ext support (0.96c)[501] FAT16 support[502] Shared libraries[502] Logitech bus mouse support[510]
Unsupported: 0.95	8 March 1992	0.95c+[511]			Login prompt[502] Initial parallel port printer support[512] Initial reboot support[513]	Jump from 0.12 to 0.95[514] First version released under the GPL[513][515]
Unsupported: 0.12	15 January 1992				Job control[515] Virtual consoles[515] pty[515] Symbolic links[515] Virtual memory[515]
Unsupported: 0.11	8 December 1991				Demand-loading from disk[516] CGA, MGA and EGA support[516] malloc[484]	First kernel where other people start making real contributions[516]
Unsupported: 0.10	November 1991				Initial floppy driver support[517] Supports up to 16MB RAM[517]	Jump from 0.03 to 0.10 First release where Minix isn't needed anymore[518]
Unsupported: 0.03	October 1991[518]				Multithreaded filesystem[518]
Unsupported: 0.02	5 October 1991				US keyboard support[518]	First "usable" release; for wider distribution[519]
Unsupported: 0.01	17 September 1991				i386 support[520] PATA support[520] Minix support[521][520] VGA text mode[520][514] Hardcoded Finnish keyboard[520] Supports up to 8MB RAM[517]
Legend: Unsupported Supported Latest version Preview version Future version

See also

• Linux portal

• Linux adoption
• Linux kernel
• History of Linux
• Timeline of free and open-source software