The SUSE engineering team is excited to announce that the SLES 15 SP6 Public Release Candidate is now available for download.
This version sets the foundation for a comprehensive refresh of our flagship suite of enterprise products and extensions, including those for SAP, High Availability, High Performance Computing, and Linux-based desktops.
SP6 is a “Refresh” release, and as such, it introduces a Linux kernel version bump and a stack upgrade. The new kernel, version 6.4, along with updates to key components such as Glibc, OpenSSL, and OpenSSH, as well as Java, Python, Rust, Go, PHP, and Node application runtimes, offers significant improvements in terms of security and performance. Additionally, there is a full set of driver updates and enablement of new hardware features.
We are proud of all the work and care that has gone into this release. While we’d love to go through all the changes and new features, the list is so extensive that we’ll need to focus just on the most relevant ones for now. Stay tuned for more blogs that will cover them in detail.
Category
Changes & Enhancements
General Enhancements
Major Kernel Update: Increased productivity and enablement for the latest hardware through a significant kernel upgrade to version 6.4 enhancing system responsiveness and compatibility with newer technology.
Memory Management Upgrades: Introduction of memory folio, multi-generational LRU (Least Recently Used) algorithms, and improved kernel samepage merging techniques, alongside enhancements in write congestion handling to optimize system memory efficiency (Kernel 6.4).
File Systems Improvements: Includes performance enhancements to Btrfs, along with new filesystem health reporting capabilities via fanotify, facilitating improved reliability and monitoring (Kernel 6.4).
Networking Updates: Upgrades include support for IPv4 big TCP sessions and IPv6 Jumbogram packets to improve the handling of large data transfers across networks (Kernel 6.4).
Optimizations for Specific Platforms: Includes performance optimizations specifically designed for Intel’s Eagle Stream and Birch Stream platforms, aiming to maximize efficiency and speed on these architectures.
Security Features
Advanced Encryption: Integration of OpenSSL 3.1 as the default setting, enabled with post-quantum cryptography, ensuring robust security against emerging threats.
Enhanced Security Configurations: Removal of the SELinux runtime disable capability to bolster security measures, alongside improvements to the Random Number Generator (RNG) for better security practices (Kernel 6.4).
Cryptography Performance: Enhancements to Power cryptography performance across various security libraries such as Kernel, nettle, libgcrypt, NSS FreeBL, and OpenSSL, providing stronger security capabilities.
Hardware Enablement
Broad Hardware Support: Includes updates and new feature enablement across a diverse array of hardware platforms such as Intel, AMD, Arm, and IBM, with specific driver refreshes and support for new chipsets and machines. Detailed updates for Intel include support for Sapphire Rapids and Emerald Rapids platforms, among others.
Secure Execution Enhancements: New enhancements for secure execution on IBM and AMD platforms, including crypto device passthrough and additional CPU topology information, which contribute to secure and efficient hardware operations. These include support for AMD’s SEV SNP and Intel’s TDX technologies.
Developer Tools
Updated Toolchain and Libraries The release brings the toolchain and libraries up to par with upstream developments, ensuring developers have the latest tools at their disposal for building modern applications. This includes updated versions of GCC and other development tools.
Expanded Support for Programming Languages and Development Environments: Updates include support for the latest versions of PHP 8.2, Node.js 20, OpenJDK 21, Go, and Rust, along with enhanced container tooling and updated base container images for streamlined development and deployment.
With this release, SUSE, as the largest independent open source company, continues to demonstrate its full commitment to building and maintaining predictable, compliant, secure, and high-quality real open-source solutions for enterprise customers.
These solutions are released based on a clear roadmap and with full involvement from our communities, customers, and partners. It’s also a testament to support for interoperability with communities like openSUSE through initiatives such as Closing the Leap Gap and openELA via our SUSE Liberty Linux support service.
Want to try SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP6 Public RC now? Head to our downloads page or stay tuned for the official release in the next months.
If you want to dig deeper, meet the product teams, and get insights about SUSE and SLES, we invite our entire community of users to join us at SUSECON in Berlin on June 17-19 for a truly open source experience where “Choice Happens”.
