Interview: with Linus Torvalds
Interview: with Linus Torvalds
In June of this year, kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman sat down with Linus Torvalds in front of a live audience at LinuxCon Japan to look at the first 20 years of Linux, the state of the kernel, and the future of Linux.
Greg Kroah-Hartman: You announced that the version number is going to change. You said 3.0.
Linus Torvalds: It’s not out yet, but I did the RC just before I left for this trip. If everything goes well – and it looks fine so far – in about seven or eight weeks, we’ll have the final 3.0 release just in time for the year’s festivities. I’m actually really happy about the whole thing. I’m finally getting rid of 2.6!
I don’t know how many of you know this, but with our old versioning, I added a third number – we’re up to 39 right now – and then to make things even more interesting, Greg does something like 2.6.39.1 to number the stable releases. It just gets really messy. Then all the distributions have their own build version, so when you actually run Linux, you will run something like 2.6.39.7-13 [audience laughs]. We’ve been doing this for a long time, and it’s been kind of meaningless.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora 43 Has Finally Landed
The Fedora Linux developers have announced their latest release, Fedora 43.
-
KDE Unleashes Plasma 6.5
The Plasma 6.5 desktop environment is now available with new features, improvements, and the usual bug fixes.
-
Xubuntu Site Possibly Hacked
It appears that the Xubuntu site was hacked and briefly served up a malicious ZIP file from its download page.
-
LMDE 7 Now Available
Linux Mint Debian Edition, version 7, has been officially released and is based on upstream Debian.
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Reaches EOL
Linux kernel 6.16 has reached its end of life, which means you'll need to upgrade to the next stable release, Linux kernel 6.17.
-
Amazon Ditches Android for a Linux-Based OS
Amazon has migrated from Android to the Linux-based Vega OS for its Fire TV.
-
Cairo Dock 3.6 Now Available for More Compositors
If you're a fan of third-party desktop docks, then the latest release of Cairo Dock with Wayland support is for you.
-
System76 Unleashes Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta
System76's first beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 is an impressive feat.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.