On July 24, 2026, Greg Kroah-Hartman released six long-term support (LTS) kernel versions simultaneously, including the new 6.18.40 branch. The release included a substantial number of patches, with the latest LTS branch receiving 1,624 updates, emphasizing security fixes for critical vulnerabilities such as CVE-2026-46113. Alongside security improvements, various subsystem updates were made, enhancing power management, memory reclaim, and networking. All source tarballs are available at kernel.org, with vendors expected to integrate the patches into their distributions soon

Linux Kernel 6.18.40 and Five LTS Branches Released in Massive July Stable Cycle

Greg Kroah-Hartman released six LTS kernel versions simultaneously on Friday, July 24, 2026, ranging from 5.10.261 to 6.18.40. The stable review cycle featured up to 1,624 patches for the newest branch, accompanied by the 7.1.5 point release and 7.2-rc4 mainline candidate. Security remains the priority, with critical fixes for KVM/x86 shadow paging (CVE-2026-46113), XFS data corruption, and a BPF/s390 verifier mismatch flagged as a regression. All source tarballs are available at kernel.org, with distribution vendors expected to integrate the patches into their trees shortly.

Linux Kernel 6.18.40 and Five LTS Branches Released in Massive July Stable Cycle @ Linux Compatible