XanMod Kernels 7.1.3 and 6.18.38 Released, Tracking Upstream Point Releases
XanMod maintainer Alexandre Frade has pushed out the next batch of kernels, tracking the upstream point releases dropped today. Both Linux 7.1.3-xanmod1 and Linux 6.18.38-xanmod1 are available as of July 4, 2026.
If you're running a Debian-based distro like Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, or Linux Mint and you've got the XanMod repository configured, you're looking at apt upgrade territory. Frade built and published both branches simultaneously. You can grab the latest mainline stable or the long-term support variant depending on what your system needs.
The 7.1.3 Mainline Build
The 7.1.3 branch sits in the mainline stable tree. It inherits all the upstream fixes from Linux 7.1.3 and layers on XanMod's standard performance tweaks. That includes LLVM ThinLTO compilation with Software Pipelining and Polyhedral optimizations. You're also getting the multigenerational LRU framework enabled by default, which helps memory pressure on heavier workloads.
Keep in mind that XanMod ships multiple variants for x86_64. You'll want to pick the package that matches your CPU generation. The x64v2 and x64v3 options let you target specific instruction sets rather than running a generic build that wastes cycles on features your silicon doesn't support. There's also sched_ext support if you want to experiment with third-party process schedulers.
The 6.18.38 LTS Variant
The 6.18.38 build is the one for Debian oldstable and production systems that haven't migrated to the newer kernel series yet. It carries the same XanMod optimizations, but it's also available in a real-time configuration.
If you're running a gaming server, a streaming rig, or a live production environment where latency matters more than throughput, there's a dedicated linux-xanmod-rt-lts package available. PREEMPT_RT builds are always a niche interest, but for the right workload, they're the difference between a dropped packet and a smooth session.
Security and Fixes
The changelog is dense. ksmbd got an out-of-bounds read fix in smb_check_perm_dacl(). apparmor has a use-after-free patch for the rawdata dedup loop. KVM has page overflow fixes for the AMD SEV path and several guest-triggerable bug fixes in the x86 and arm64 paths.
Not cheap to audit, but the filesystem patches are worth a look. f2fs received a cluster of fixes for COW data reads and atomic writes. NFS/NFSD got resource leak prevention and ACL leak fixes. WiFi drivers for iwlwifi, rtw88, and mt76 all received race condition and memory leak patches. batman-adv mesh networking also saw a broad fix set for TVLV race conditions and divide-by-zero avoidance in tp_meter.
XanMod's Custom Patchset
On top of the upstream fixes, XanMod's custom patchset includes AMD's 3D V-Cache optimizer. If you're on a Ryzen 7 7800X3D or similar, this is the patchset that gives you the performance edge. Cloudflare's TCP collapse processing is also there for high-throughput networking. Google's BBRv3 congestion control is built-in and enabled by default.
Other third-party additions include Netfilter nf_tables RFC3489 full-cone NAT support, PCIe ACS Override for IOMMU group bypassing, and the Valve Steam Deck EC sensors driver. You can browse the full patch list on GitLab.
Getting the Update
Head here to set up the repository if you're switching over. The APT repository supports Debian bookworm through trixie and sid, plus Ubuntu noble, plucky, questing, and several Mint forks.
wget -qO - https://dl.xanmod.org/archive.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -vo /etc/apt/keyrings/xanmod-archive-keyring.gpg echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/xanmod-archive-keyring.gpg] http://deb.xanmod.org $(lsb_release -sc) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xanmod-release.list sudo apt update && sudo apt install linux-xanmod-x64v3
For external modules, grab dkms libelf-dev clang lld llvm. Source tarballs and patch files are also available on GitLab under the tags 7.1.3-xanmod1 and 6.18.38-xanmod1. Frade is also active in the XanMod Telegram group for support and discussion. Head here for more information.
