Lead developer Greg Kroah-Gartman has announced that the Linux 6.12 kernel has officially received LTS (Long Term Support) status. This version will be supported for at least two years. This was reported by 9to5Linux.
Linux 6.12 was released on November 17, 2024. The kernel has new features such as real-time support for "PREEMPT_RT", a new scheduler called sched_ext, and the ability to display DRM panic messages as QR codes. Also, in version 6.12, numerous drivers have been added and updated to improve compatibility with hardware.
The Linux 6.12 kernel has begun to appear in the stable update repositories of a number of popular GNU/Linux distributions, including Arch Linux, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Fedora Linux, and others.
The Linux 6.12 kernel has been added to the list of versions with long-term support, which already includes Linux 6.6 LTS, Linux 6.1 LTS, Linux 5.15 LTS, Linux 5.10 LTS and Linux 5.4 LTS. All of these versions, with the exception of Linux 5.4, will remain officially supported until the end of December 2026.
The two-year support period is not final, as kernel developers usually seek to extend it to four years. This is especially true if hardware manufacturers and other companies show interest in using a kernel with long-term support in their devices.