Linux Kernel 7.2

Linux 7.2 shipped on schedule in August 2026, closing one of the busiest development cycles in the kernel’s history at roughly 600,000 new lines of code. It is the kernel that will power Ubuntu 26.10 and the next round of distribution releases.

What’s new

The headline change is cache-aware scheduling: the task scheduler now recognizes when tasks share data and co-locates them within the same Last Level Cache domain, which matters most on chiplet-based CPUs where a cross-chiplet cache miss is expensive. Beyond the scheduler, 7.2 adds initial Apple M3 support, HDMI 2.1 Fixed Rate Link support in the AMDGPU driver for high-bandwidth displays, Intel’s USB4STREAM protocol, initial CRI platform support in the Intel Xe driver, and Rust support extended to the IBM s390 architecture.

Building the kernel

tar xf linux-7.2.tar.xz
cd linux-7.2
cp /boot/config-$(uname -r) .config
make olddefconfig
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make modules_install install

Building from source is rarely necessary; rolling distributions typically package a new mainline kernel within a week or two, and fixed-release distributions pick it up at their next release. Compile it yourself when you need a specific configuration option, an out-of-tree patch, or hardware support that has landed upstream but not yet in your distribution.

Mainline vs longterm

7.2 is a mainline release, not a longterm one: it receives stable point updates until the next mainline version supersedes it. For machines where you would rather not track that cadence, the 6.12 and 6.18 LTS branches remain the appropriate choice.

Verify Your Download

PGP signatures and SHA256 checksums are published alongside the tarball at kernel.org.