On February 8, Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, announced the release of the stable version of Linux 6.19 and officially confirmed that the next-generation kernel version number will be Linux 7.0. He said in the release email of Linux 6.19 that he was "almost unable to count such a large number again", so he decided to name the next version of the kernel 7.0. This also means that after 6.19, the Linux kernel version number will usher in an "integer" update.
According to the established cadence, the merge window for Linux 7.0 will start tomorrow and last about two weeks. During the merge window, new features and changes submitted by maintainers of each subsystem will be gradually merged into the mainline branch, thus forming the functional basis of 7.0. There are currently more than thirty pull requests queued for processing, showing the community's active preparations before the start of the new version cycle.
Judging from the timing, the stable version of Linux 7.0 is expected to be released in mid-April. According to the relevant release planning, this kernel version will also be included in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, thereby providing updated kernel features and hardware support capabilities for the long-term support version. For desktop users and server users, the arrival of the 7.0 stable version will be gradually reflected through the upgrade of mainstream distributions.
Although it is currently on the eve of the opening of the merge window, many functional improvements for Linux 7.0 have been announced in advance. Relevant reports pointed out that Linux 7.0 will include "many exciting changes" involving performance optimization, hardware support and kernel internal mechanisms. As the merge window advances, these new features will gradually enter the main line, forming the main focus of the 7.0 cycle.
For the Linux kernel community, the jump in version number from 6.x to 7.0 is more of a milestone mark than a technical demarcation line purely pursuing "major changes". However, behind the version number update, the continuous functional evolution and optimization will still be presented through the new version 7.0. With the release of subsequent Release Candidates (RC), the industry and users will have more opportunities to test the performance of Linux 7.0 under real loads and diverse hardware environments.