Linux Kernel 5.6 Ready To Fix Year 2038 Problem

With the onset of a new decade, Linux Kernel 5.6 is already prepared to resolve the “Y2038” or “Unix Y2K” problem that can arise in the upcoming decade.

A few days after the release of Linux Kernel 5.5, Arnd Bergmann, Linux developer, mailed Linus Torvalds mentioning that the Linux Kernel 5.6 should serve as a base for a 32-bit system to run beyond the year 2038.

The pull request made by Bergmann includes the changes to the time_t that stores the number of seconds, a signed 32-bit integer.

The Year 2038 problem states that the Unix timestamp will overflow on January 19, 2038, as it won’t be able to store the signed 32-bit integer and it will restrict to update the 32-bit systems.

To avoid the Y2038 problem, Bergmann announced that the user space application needs to use the modern Linux Kernel system calls and user space to be built against 64-bit time_t using GNU C Library 2.32 and Musl libc 1.2.

Keep reading Fossbytes for all the upcoming updates on Linux Kernel.

Via – Phoronix