Linux Kernel Ships 6.18 With Hardware Support
The Linux kernel project released version 6.18, introducing broad hardware support and subsystem updates after more than two months of development. Key additions include device trees for Apple M2 chips, Intel Wildcat Lake display support, Snapdragon laptop drivers, a Rust-based Tyr Mali GPU driver, storage improvements (Btrfs, XFS), and virtualization fixes; 6.18 is expected to become a 2025 long-term support (LTS) release. Distributions will begin adopting it soon.
Key Points
- 1Adds hardware support for Intel Wildcat Lake, Apple M2 series, Snapdragon laptops, and SiFive RISC-V
- 2Improves virtualization and security with Secure AVIC, TDX kexec fixes, and VM topology corrections for AMD EPYC
- 3Enables practitioners to adopt 6.18 as a potential 2025 LTS, benefiting long-term maintenance and stability
Scoring Rationale
Official release brings broad hardware, storage, and virtualization improvements plus experimental Rust driver; primarily incremental rather than transformative.
Sources
Public references used for this report.
Practice interview problems based on real data
1,625 SQL & Python problems across 15 industry datasets — the exact type of data you work with.
Try 250 free problems
