In recent days, in different communities there has been talk of a bug in EXT4 that affected Linux versions with the 6.1.x kernel. The Debian 12.3 update should have arrived days ago, but the developers behind the grandfather and father system of many others decided to wait for that bug in the kernel to be corrected. The patch arrived in Linux 6.1.66, which it already uses Debian 12.4.
As we are reminded in each maintenance update, Debian 12.4 is not a new version of the operating system and it is not necessary to reinstall from scratch. Everything in the new image can be added to existing installations by simply updating the operating system. Regarding numbering, 12.4 has arrived after the October 12.2, and Project Debian has thought it is a good idea to skip 12.3 which had been delayed by the Linux 6.1.x crash with EXT4.
Debian 12.4 now available
The bug in question was related to data corruption from previous versions of Linux 6.1, since fixed in 6.1.66. Therefore, anyone using the previous LTS version of the kernel is recommended to upgrade as soon as possible.
This update also fixes a local privilege escalation vulnerability in Amanda and dozens of other bugs and security flaws. Already on kinder ground, support for Unicode 15.1 and Zstd compression has been included in libsolv.
As we have already explained, 12.4 is the third maintenance update for Bookworm, and they are new images that can be downloaded from the official Debian website. Users who installed Debian 12 in the past should have already received everything from this third maintenance update if they have updated the operating system, either from the terminal or from graphical tools such as GNOME Software or Discover.
More information and list of updated packages in the release note.