OpenWrt Community launches first post-merge release with 18.06 stable version

The OpenWrt Community released this week a new 18.06 stable version series. The release marks the first stable version after the merge between OpenWrt and LEDE projects under the OpenWrt name in January 2018 and after previous stable LEDE 17.01 and OpenWrt 15.05 major releases. 18.06 stable version aims to pave the ground for shifting the focus to frequent, smaller releases. All updates spread over more than 4000 commits since the previous LEDE 17.01 release.

The new release brings an updated Linux kernel 4.9.111 for several older targets from Broadcom, Freescale, Lantiq, Marvell, NXP, Qualcomm, Synopsys, and others. A longer list of more recent hardware from manufacturers including AppliedMicro, Broadcom, Cavium, Freescale, Intel, Marvell, Mediatek, NXP, Qualcomm, Synopsys, Texas Instruments, and others feature a 4.14.52 kernel version.

Other updates include an improved system upgrade procedure, auto-rollback functionality for reverting configuration changes, an updated toolchain, IPv6 and DHCPv6-related fixes, added Spectre and Meltdown mitigations and many others. The new release also features numerous new devices across all supported targets, with some of the contributions provided by Sartura.

Users aiming to upgrade to the new release from OpenWrt 15.05 or LEDE 17.01 are also provided with a sysupgrade utility to preserve their configuration, although a configuration backup is advised nonetheless.

The full changelog for OpenWrt 18.06 since LEDE 17.01 can be read here. The first service release, 18.06.01 is planned for release in September this year.