IPFire 2.29 Core Update 192 open-source hardened Linux firewall has been released today, and it’s now available for download, with Linux kernel 6.12 LTS and other interesting changes.
The biggest change in the new IPFire release is the switch to the latest LTS (Long-Term Support) kernel branch, namely Linux 6.12 LTS, a major update from the Linux 6.6 LTS kernel series used until now, along with a new driver for Realtek 8812au chips, a set of firmware for Raspberry Pi SBCs, and U-Boot 2024.10.
Both the Linux 6.12 and 6.6 LTS kernel series are expected to be supported until December 2026, but the former introduces several key features, such as improved TCP performance of up to 40 percent, TCP fraglist GRO support, scheduling enhancements for lower latency when processing packets, and better hardware support.
IPFire 2.29 Core Update 192 also updates the collectd service for collecting statistics about IPFire’s status to version 5.12.0, replaces the legacy DEFLATE zlib compression library with zlib-ng for faster compression/decompression for the DELFATE algorithm on modern CPUs, and updates the DNS root zone.
Another interesting change is that the CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) printing server has been removed from this release due to a couple of security vulnerabilities and upstream abandoning the project, but also because most modern printers are now all network-enabled.
Other than that, the new IPFire release updates speedtest-cli so it can be launched at the top of the hour and thirty minutes past the hour, improves the French translation, improves the displaying of the logos uploaded to the IPFire Captive Portal, and updates several core packages and add-ons.
Check out the release announcement page for more details. Meanwhile, you can download the IPFire 2.29 Core Update 192 release from the official website as ISO or USB images for 64-bit (x86_64) and AArch64 (ARM64) hardware architectures.
Image credits: Logo by the IPFire project (edited by Marius Nestor)
Content retrieved from: https://9to5linux.com/ipfire-hardened-linux-firewall-distro-is-now-powered-by-linux-kernel-6-12-lts.
