Linux 5.6 RC1 has been released with WireGuard support, 2038 fix, USB4 support and more.

Linux Kernel

Yesterday, Linus Torvalds announced the first RC version of Linux 5.6, in which many pretty cool features are included, such is the case with WireGuard (which we talked about in previous articles), the USB4 standard, the new Zonefs file system, security enhancements, and much more.

For many in the community, this is a very important job that has been done and Linux 5.6 is likely to be the most interesting version since Linux 5.0. There are many new features and improvements in this version of the kernel and they could arrive earlier than its stable version in about two months.

Main changes in Linux 5.6 RC1

As we mentioned in previous articles David Muller, Linux network stack maintainer took the patches from WireGuard to be implemented in the Linux Kernel and now that work is already officially compatible with Linux 5.6 RC1.

linux
Related article:
WireGuard was accepted and will arrive integrated in the next version of Linux 5.6

WireGuard is a software application and a new open source communication protocol and free. It is a VPN extremely simple, fast and modern that uses advanced encryption. It is faster, simpler, lighter, and more useful than IPsec. Many see it as a potential replacement for OpenVPN.

The addition of the necessary zinc encryption interfaces to the WireGuard virtual private network has started since Linux 5.5.

To go further, WireGuard uses Curve25519 for key exchange, ChaCha20 for encryption, Poly1305 for data authentication, SipHash for the hash table keys and BLAKE2s for the hash. It supports Layer 3 for IPv4 and IPv6 and can encapsulate v4-in-v6 and vice versa. WireGuard has already been adopted by some VPN service providers like Mullvad VPN, AzireVPN, IVPN, and cryptostorm.

Another change that stand out, is the added support for the USB4 standard. This is a technology which is based on the latest Thunderbolt specification (version 3) and promises similar top speeds (up to 40Gb / s).

USB4 uses the classic USB-C connector and is backward compatible with USB standards, including USB 3.2 which doubles the maximum speed of a USB connection (from 10 Gb / s to 20 Gb / s), USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt 3 itself. USB4 connects 4K or 8K displays to USB, besides that it allows to connect a series of several USB devices to the chain in the same port.

Additionally, it supports powering devices displaying a maximum power of 100 watts through USB Power Delivery functionality.

Another great improvement that arrives with Linux 5.6RC1, is that this It becomes the first nucleus that is programmed for 32-bit systems to pass the year 2038.

Since on 32-bit Unix and Linux, they have the time value in a signed integer format 32-bit that has the maximum value of 2147483647. Beyond this number, an integer overflow is generated, in which the values ​​will be stored as a negative number.

This means that for a 32-bit system, the time value cannot exceed 2147483647 seconds after January 1, 1970. In simpler terms, after 03:14:07 UTC on January 19, 2038, due to an integer overflow, the time will be read as “December 13, 1901” instead of January 19, 2038.

Regarding Linux 5.6 RC1 hardware support arrives with support for:

  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2000 Turing supports the new open source driver that can offer hardware acceleration, but it is still based on binary firmware. Changes still need to be made to NVC0 Gallium3D to support OpenGL.
  • Support for AMD Pollock.
  • Support for AMDGPU reset for Renoir and Navi.
  • Intel Gen11 and Gen12 graphics enhancements.
  • Many other changes to DRM drivers.
  • improved multimedia drivers for Rockchip SoCs.
  • ASUS laptops with AMD Ryzen processors will stop overheating and crashing
  • support for new SoCs and ARM cards

Finally, if you want to know more about it, you can consult the statement that Linus Torvalds sent in the following link

In order to test this RC1 from Linux 5.6, you can download the code from its official website.


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