Linux Kernel 5.13 Reaches End of Life, Users Urged to Upgrade to Linux Kernel 5.14

This is a friendly reminder that the Linux 5.13 kernel series reached end of life and it will no longer be supported with security updates.

Released on June 27th, 2021, Linux kernel 5.13 was one of the bigger releases in the Linux 5.x series with over 16,000 commits contributed by more than 2000 developers. It introduced initial FreeSync HDMI support for AMD GPUs, initial support for Apple’s M1 processor, and support for the Landlock security module.

It also brought improved support for the exFAT file system, driver support for AMD NAVI GPUs, initial support for the AMD Radeon “Aldebaran” GPU series, a new SMB3 mount option leading to improved performance, as well as more goodies for the EXT4 file system.

On September 18th, 2021, renowned Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman published what appeared to be the last maintenance update to the Linux kernel 5.13 series, Linux 5.13.19, saying that the branch is now end-of-life and urging everyone to upgrade to the latest Linux 5.14 kernel series.

“Note, this is the LAST 5.13.y kernel release. This branch is now end-of-life. Everyone should move to the 5.14.y kernel branch now,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman in a mailing list announcement.

As of today, September 22nd, 2021, the Linux 5.13 kernel is now marked as EOL (End-of-Life) on the kernel.org website, which means that it will no longer receive maintenance update, version 5.13.19 being the last in the series.

As such, if your GNU/Linux distribution is using Linux 5.13, you should consider upgrading to Linux kernel 5.14 as soon as possible. If you can’t do it yourself, ask the maintainers of your distro to upgrade the kernel packages.

On top of the features mentioned above, Linux kernel 5.14 brings a much-enhanced AMDGPU graphics driver for AMD GPUs, further improvements to the EXT4 file system, new features to the F2FS file system, a new libata subsystem for controlling IDE devices, and much more.

Unfortunately, Linux kernel 5.14 won’t be an LTS (long-term support) release either, but it’s currently the most recent stable kernel branch available for GNU/Linux distributions and you should use it if you’re not relying on one of the many long-term supported branches.

Popular rolling-release distributions like Arch Linux and openSUSE Tumbleweed have already adopted the Linux 5.14 kernel series, the latest version being 5.14.7, released today September 22nd, 2021, and I believe other popular distros like Fedora Linux will ship Linux 5.14 in their repositories too in the coming days.

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