Linus Torvalds has confirmed that the next major release of the Linux kernel will be version 7.0. The announcement came following the recent release of Linux 6.19 stable, with Torvalds stating he "officially confirmed that the next kernel version is Linux 7.0 as the successor to Linux 6.19." Public testing for the 7.0 kernel is anticipated to begin on February 22, 2026. This marks a new major version increment in the kernel's development cycle, succeeding the 6.x series.