After a few weeks delay due to a security breach at the kernel.org website, Linus Torvalds has released Linux kernel 3.1 update which brings with it a range of new features. The new Linux version took around 3 months to develop and includes enhancements that improve the speed or expand the capabilities of both the KVM and Xen virtualisation systems.

Linux 3.1 adds support for the open source OpenRISC CPU architecture, near-field communication (NFC), dynamic writeback throttling, a new iSCSI implementation as well as Nintendo’s Wii controller.

An overview of these and other advances in the kernel, and a look at upcoming changes in Linux kernel 3.2, is available in an article on The H Open: What’s new in Linux 3.1