Liquorix Tags Linux 7.1-19 Kernel With PDS Sleep Credit Boost and Heavy Security Patching
The enthusiast-focused distro kernel lands on the 7.1.11 upstream base, adding a task-awakening heuristic aimed at reducing frame-time stutter in games.
Liquorix has officially tagged linux-liquorix 7.1-19. Maintainer Steven Barrett wrapped up the build and pushed it to GitHub. The new package, versioned 7.1.11-1 under Liquorix's own numbering scheme, pulls in Linux 7.1.11 as its upstream foundation.
In the months since the 7.1 series landed, the PDS scheduler patches have been floating through the kernel mailing list. This is the first full release to bake the sleep credit heuristic into a stable base. It targets the exact niche Liquorix has served for over a decade: desktop Linux users who want interactive responsiveness over raw multi-core throughput.
The PDS Sleep Credit Heuristic
The PDS scheduler is Liquorix's main draw. It replaces the standard CFS with a priority-demand model that treats gaming loops and audio buffer tasks differently than background compilers. In version 7.1-19, Barrett added a new rule for tasks sitting in the Project-C priority class.
Previously, when an interactive task fell asleep, it lost its priority headroom the moment it woke up. The scheduler reset to baseline, and you'd feel it as a frame-time spike or a tiny audio crackle. The new heuristic tracks how long a Project-C task sleeps, then hands it a credit that boosts its priority on wake-up. The credit decays as the task continues running, so it can't inflate its priority indefinitely.
It's a small change on paper. Not bad for a point release. For anyone running a DAW or pushing high-refresh-rate gaming on Linux, it directly attacks the stutter problem that plagues default scheduler behavior.
The Security Patchset
Upstream Linux 7.1.11 dropped two days before Liquorix tagged the build. It comes loaded with coordinated security hardening across the futex, HID, and Bluetooth subsystems. Greg Kroah-Hartman signed off on the campaign.
The Joy-Con out-of-bounds read is probably the headline vulnerability here. A joycon_ctlr_read_handler() function casts data to a 49-byte struct while only guarding 12 bytes, leaving room for up to 37 bytes of past-the-end reads. Spoofed controllers can trigger it. Hyper-V guests face a similar bounds-validation gap in the synthetic HID driver that could crash the guest kernel from a malicious host.
Then there's the futex subsystem. Six interrelated patches from Peter Zijlstra, Thomas Gleixner, and others plug race conditions, use-after-free paths, and cross-address-space key confusion in the private local hash feature. KASAN has already confirmed slab-use-after-free in the final hash put, and the exec() race leaves a window where process state checks fail between memory map swaps.
Bluetooth isn't getting a pass either. The ISO socket path leaks uninitialized kernel stack bytes through getsockname(), the hci_sync subsystem races during suspend, and a BIG sync state machine bug leaves sockets permanently stuck in a listening state after a failed connection attempt. If you're running Bluetooth peripherals, you'll want this patchset applied quickly.
How It Stacks Up Against the Competition
Liquorix and XanMod occupy the same enthusiast space but draw the lines differently. Liquorix sticks to AMD64-only builds, hard kernel preemption, 1000 Hz tick scheduling, and Kyber/BFQ block drivers. The focus stays narrow. XanMod goes broader with LLVM ThinLTO, x86-64-v2/v3 multi-version targets, and an optional RT branch built off 6.18 LTS.
If you need maximum compiler optimization across varied hardware generations, XanMod's pipeline makes more sense. If you're tuning a single machine for audio interfaces, capture cards, or competitive frame pacing, Liquorix's scheduler-first approach stays relevant. Both projects pull the same upstream security fixes. You won't be running vulnerable futex paths either way.
Building the kernel from source is straightforward for anyone comfortable with Docker-based builds. Liquorix ships a make bootstrap-debian and make build-binary-debian workflow, with matching targets for Arch. The project also maintains an SMT toggle utility for AMD processors, and Barrett's build infrastructure is fully GPL-2.0 licensed.
This one-liner installer drops the repo and installs the kernel in one shot:
curl -s 'https://liquorix.net/install-liquorix.sh' | sudo bash
Keep in mind that Liquorix is a drop-in replacement kernel. It'll replace your distribution's mainline build, so stick to LTS release branches if you want to minimize breakage after a major distro upgrade. The repo stays active, Barrett typically tags within hours of upstream point releases, and the changelog for 7.1-19 is up on GitHub.
