About two months later than the earlier version and as usual, Linus Torvalds launched a new stable version of the kernel is developed. This time, we are talking about Linux 5.8, of which its main developer had doubts whether it would be necessary to launch an eighth RC or not. In part I doubted because of the size it was having and because it is going to introduce a lot of changes. More than news, which there are also, I mention this because it is said that 20% of the code is new.
But it also includes many important news, something especially interesting for Ubuntu users because, if there are no surprises, it will be the kernel version that Groovy Gorilla uses which will be released in mid-October. As for other distributions, especially those that use the development model known as Rolling Release, such as Arch Linux, Manjaro or EndeavorOS, Linux 5.8 will arrive on your system very soon, when they release v5.8.1 and it is already recommended for adoption. massive.
Linux 5.8 Highlights
Among the most outstanding novelties that come with Linux 5.8, I would highlight the following:
- Qualcomm Adreno 405/640/650 open source support.
- Support for AMDGPU TMZ has been added with reliable memory zones for encrypted video memory.
- Support for Intel Tiger Lake SAGV and other Gen12 graphics updates.
- Nouveau support for NVIDIA format modifiers improved.
- The AMD power controller was merged to finally expose the Zen / Zen2 power sensors on Linux.
- AMD Ryzen 4000 Renoir temperature and EDAC support.
- Hardened ARM 64-bit security with support for Branch Target Identification (BTI) and shadow call stack.
- F2FS LZO-RLE compression support has been added for this flash-optimized file system.
- Improvements to the Microsoft exFAT driver.
- Support to emulate MLC NAND flash memory as SLC.
- A performance optimization for Xen 9pfs.
- SMB3 performance works for large I / O.
- Fixes for EXT4.
- Intel Tiger Lake Thunderbolt support has been added, as well as ComboPHY support for Intel SoC Gateways.
- Support for Thunderbolt on non-x86 systems.
- SELinux optimizations.
- A new initrdmem = option which among other use cases can be used by replacing the Intel ME space with an initrd image in the saved flash area
- You have these news and a more extensive list on our sister blog Ubunlog.
At the moment, only manual installation or with special software
Linus Torvalds released Linux 5.8 a few hours ago, which means that It is now available, but we have to do the manual installation from its tarball, available from this link. Another option is to use the tool Greatness, an alternative with GUI (user interface) from which we can see if there is a new version of the kernel, update it and, if we do not like the changes or experience a problem, it also allows us to make the way back.
Personally, I would not recommend updating the kernel on our own unless we are experiencing an excruciating hardware failure in our day-to-day life. I always say the best thing is to trust our distribution and wait for it to be the one to offer us the new version, since it will have made sure that it works as well as possible. In the case of operating systems like Ubuntu, that moment will come in mid-October. In the case of other distributions, it will depend on their developers, but it is known that those who use the development model known as Rolling Release include the new versions of the kernel much earlier. They usually wait for the first point update, at which point Kroah-Hartman, one of the most important developers of the kernel, specifically who is in charge of maintaining it, already recommends it for mass adoption.
In any case, Linux 5.8 is already available and is a very important version that will improve a lot a v5.7 that came, mostly, to polish things up.