Sunday, July 24, 2011

Download Linux Kernel 3.0 Released, Adds Support for Microsoft Kinect

Linux Kernel 3.0 availability for download of the highly anticipated Linux kernel 3.0, announced by its father, Linus Torvalds.

Among the new features included in Linux kernel 3.0 we can mention Btrfs data scrubbing and automatic defragmentation, Berkeley Packet Filter JIT filtering, unprivileged ICMP_ECHO, XEN Dom0 support, wake on WLAN, lots of new drivers and support for many hardware components.

"So there it is. Gone are the 2.6.< bignum > days, and 3.0 is out. This obviously also opens the merge window for the next kernel, which will be 3.1. The stable team will take the third digit, so 3.0.1 will be the first stable release based on 3.0."

"That said, judging by past experience, the summer merge windows often tend to be quieter, so maybe I worry needlessly. Much of Europe is starting to go on vacation, and parts of the US are being fried to a crisp, so maybe 3.1 will be calm too." - said Linus Torvalds in the announcement.

Highlights of Linux Kernel 3.0:

· Automatic defragmentation, performance improvements and scrubbing for the Btrfs filesystem;
· sendmmsg(): batching of sendmsg() calls;
· XEN dom0 support;
· Cleancache;
· Berkeley Packet Filter just-in-time filtering;
· Support for Wake on WLAN;
· Unprivileged ICMP_ECHO messages;
· setns() syscall: better namespace handling;
· Alarm-timers;
· Support for Microsoft Kinect;
· Support for Apple iSight webcam;
· Support for AMD Llano Fusion APUs;
· Support for Intel iwlwifi 105 and 135;
· Support for Intel C600 serial-attached-scsi controller;
· Support for Ralink RT5370 USB;
· Support for several realtek rtl81xx devices;
· Lots of new drivers;
· Many bugfixes and improvements.

These are just a few of the new features available in Linux kernel 3.0. For a complete list of all the newly supported devices, newly added drivers, etc., please visit the official changelog.

Download Linux kernel 3.0