Linux kernel upgraded

“Captain, we have an upgrade!” Yes boys and girls, we have seen the upgrade of yet another kernel of code for the love of all of those Linux users out there.

Linus Torvalds has released Version 2.6.12 of the Linux kernel, a major revision including support for Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), significant changes to many drivers and other features.

The revision arrives more than three months after Version 2.6.11 and is the first release since Torvalds switched to a different system for managing the kernel source code, a move that slowed development. The 2.6 kernel was introduced in late-2003, succeeding the 2.4 kernel and bringing in a number of improvements aimed at large companies.

The latest version introduces a driver for TPM chips such as those found in some IBM (Profile, Products, Articles) laptops; the TPM is designed as a hardware safeguard for critical data such as passwords. The driver supports TPM devices from National Semiconductor and Atmel. [Read the rest]