That's right, Linux fans, the Linux kernel is about to turn seven – not years, but release numbers.

On Sunday, February 8, 2026, Linus Torvalds sent out a message to the kernel dev mailing list announcing (along with his correct prediction that most of the Super Bowl commercials would be AI-generated) that the next iteration of the Linux kernel would be called 7.0.

On that front, he stated, "I have more than three dozen pull requests for when the merge window opens tomorrow – thank you to all the early maintainers. And as people have mostly figured out, I'm getting to the point where I'm being confused by large numbers (almost running out of fingers and toes again), so the next kernel is going to be called 7.0."

If you remember working with kernel 1.x, you get just how far we've come.

One thing to keep in mind is that Linus has often said that the main version number has no relationship to the changes made to the kernel. In other words, just because we're about to hit milestone 7, don't expect this to be a ground-breaking kernel. This change in release numbers is just Torvalds not wanting to keep up with the numbering scheme that is currently up to 19.

There is some news regarding kernel 6.19. This version of the Linux kernel will include the new Live Update Orchestrator, which allows kernel updates to happen without disrupting currently active virtual machines. As someone who has been burned by this several times, it's a welcome addition.

Other features in Linux kernel 6.19 include encrypted communication between virtual machines and PCIe devices, improvements for recent Intel and AMD CPUs, and additional support for RISC-V and several Chinese CPU platforms.