The last two lines in my .bashrc file prints out a fortune, and displays my kernel version, in every terminal I open. I see 2.6 regularly, more often and more relevant than my birthday.

*Linux is turning version 3.0*

Close enough to GNU / Linux’s 20th birthday, Linux is turning 3.0-rc1.

So what’s new? Well, according to Linus, “Absolutely nothing… No breakage, no special scary new features, nothing at all like that.” – Of course the usual critical security patches, if any come through; but no ABI, API changes.

The 2.6 release first came out in 2004, and is still being maintained alongside the 2.4 kernel. The first two (2.6) digits haven’t changed since 2004, the third digit updated with kernel releases, while the fourth digit is kept for urgent security fixes that don’t constitute an whole new version.

SOURCE: https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/5/29/204