Linux 5.0 debuts – which means absolutely nothing

Linux overlord Linus Torvalds has released version 5.0 of the Linux kernel.

In his announcement of the release, Torvalds wrote “I'd like to point out (yet again) that we don't do feature-based releases, and that ‘5.0’ doesn't mean anything more than that the 4.x numbers started getting big enough that I ran out of fingers and toes.” And once Torvalds gets post-digital, in terms of being able to keep track of release numbers, he rolls over from version .20 to .0.

5.0 is not even a long-term support release: version 4.9 will be supported until January 2023 to help provide stability to Android.

But Linux 5.0 still has plenty to offer.

Changes to Retpoline chip away at some of the performance overhead imposed by mitigating Spectre V2.

There’s also some preliminary work on the year 2038 bug, a problem in 32-bit Unix-like Oses that will see them assume the date is 13 December 1901 on 19 January 2038.

One much-anticipated feature is AMD FreeSync support, which has gamers excited for its improvement of display of fast-moving images and will also make Linux a better platform for dense data visualisations.

Support for the Raspberry Pi’s official touch screen will please IoT types.