Linus Torvalds uses his Arm-powered M2 MacBook Air to release the latest Linux kernel

We don’t usually cover individual versions of the Linux kernel, in part because most updates are so routine. Any particular Linux kernel update resolves some bugs, improves support for existing hardware, makes some forward-looking changes in anticipation of new hardware, and kernel version 5.19.0 is no exception. Voronex And the My God! Ubuntu! Both have a good overview of the changes.

But there is one interesting note about this version which was mentioned by Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel In his release notes: A kernel update is released with an Arm laptop, especially M2 based version of MacBook Air from Apple.

“It’s something I’ve been waiting for Long [sic] time, and it finally came true, thanks to Team Asahi, “Torvalds wrote.” We’ve had arm64 machines around running Linux for a long time, but none of them have really been usable as a development platform yet. “

Torvalds boots Linux on his M2 MacBook with help Asahi Linuxwhich is the distribution made Work on reverse engineering Apple devices. The goal of the Asahi team is to send all this work upstream to the main Linux kernel so that all distros benefit, and Asahi has been Relatively quick to add support for new Apple chips Like the M2 or M1 Ultra as they were launched.

In November 2020, Torvalds Wrote That the new M1 version of the Air would “almost perfect” as an Arm Linux laptop, but said, “I don’t have the time to fiddle with it, or the desire to fight companies that don’t want to help.”

On a certain level, this news is just rather interesting information – most Linux users don’t care what computer Torvalds are currently using, and Asahi Linux is still in a rough, early state where a lot of things are half-functional or non-functional. But as Asahi contributor Hector Martin Noteshaving “real people… using Linux on a real, modern ARM64 platform” with a recent version of the Arm instruction set and a “kernel close to upstream” has spillover effects that benefit the rest of the ecosystem.

More people using Arm versions of Linux means more people fixing Arm related bugs that will benefit all distros, and more people discovering and fixing Arm specific issues in their own software (“experimental food,’ as Torvalds puts it in his notes). Ultimately, everyone’s experience with Linux on Arm should improve, although these benefits may take years to wear off. But combined with hardware efforts such as Qualcomm’s High Performance Arm Chips and Microsoft Commitment to arming hardware and softwareThey can make Arm-powered PCs more attractive and competitive alternatives to traditional x86-based PCs from Intel and AMD.

It should also be noted that Torvalds believes that version 5.20 of the Linux kernel will end up being version 6.0, not because of any feature updates but because he “began to worry about being confused with large numbers again.” Kernel 3.x and 4.x versions were Also go to the next major version number On or about the twentieth edition.