Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux kernel 6.12, and an eclectic assortment of changes contained within make it one of the most biggest kernel releases for a while.
In his message to the Linux Kernel Mailing List to announce the release Linus Torvalds notes that the final week of testing delivered “no strange surprises this last week, so we’re sticking to the regular release schedule”.
This patch set dramatically improves the performance of real-time applications by making kernel processes pre-emptible—effectively enabled proper real-time computing.
As I understand it, most kernel operations can’t be interrupted (i.e., they’re non-preemptible). But PREEMPT_RT allows high-priority tasks to interrupt lower-priority ones near-instantly. For specific types of tasks this improves response times and thus performance.
PREEMPT_RT has been in the works for a long time, first proposed around 2005. The route to mainline inclusion has been ongoing ever since, with parts landing in bits over many years due to the complexity involved in plumbing it all in.