Linus Torvalds Announces First Linux Kernel 6.1 Release Candidate
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Linus Torvalds Announces First Linux Kernel 6.1 Release Candidate
The two-week merge window that opened with the release of Linux kernel 6.0 on October 2nd is now officially closed and it’s time to get an early taste of the next major release, Linux kernel 6.1.
The first Release Candidate (RC) of Linux kernel 6.1 is out now and ready for testers, early adopters, and bleeding-edge users who want to get a glimpse of what’s about to be included in the final release, which is expected in early or mid-December 2022.
Update (by Roy)
Torvalds and LWN:
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Linux 6.1-rc1
You all know the drill: it's Sunday afternoon, the two weeks of merge window are over, and now we're supposed to start calming things down.
This isn't actually shaping up to be a particularly large release: we "only" have 11.5k non-merge commits during this merge window, compared to 13.5k last time around. So not exactly tiny, but smaller than the last few releases. At least in number of commits.
That said, we've got a few core things that have been brewing for a long time, most notably the multi-gen LRU VM series, and the initial Rust scaffolding (no actual real Rust code in the kernel yet, but the infrastructure is there).
And hey, this merge window was full of surprises for other reasons too - my main machine was basically out of action for a couple of days because it suddenly started showing memory problems, and it took me a couple of days to get that sorted out (to a large degree because it was unexpected and I started out blaming a kernel bug for the memory corruption). All sorted out now, but it caused some frustration.
Talking about frustration, let me just say that after I got my machine sorted out and caught up with the merge window, I wass somewhat frustrated with various late pull requests. I've mentioned this before, but it's _really_ quite annoying to get quite a few pull requests in the last few days of the merge window.
Yes, the merge window is two weeks, but that's very much to allow me time to look things over, not "two weeks to hurriedly put together a branch that you send Linus on Friday of the second week". The whole "do an all-nighter to get the paper in the day before the dealine" is something that should have gone out the window after highschool. Not for kernel development.
The rule is that things that get sent to me should be ready *before* the merge window opens, not be made ready during the merge window. With some slack for "life happens", of course, but I really get the feeling that a few people treat the end of the merge window as a deadline, missing the whole "it was supposed to be ready before the merge window".
You know who you are.
Anyway, it's not the first time I've said this, I doubt it will be the last. But maybe more people could take it to heart, ok?
Enough kvetching, let's get this party calmed down. The merge window may not be the biggest ever, but it's certainly big enough that the shortlog is much too big to post, and below is just my usual merge log. For all the gory details, please refer to the git tree.
Please get the testing started,
Linus -
Kernel prepatch 6.1-rc1 [LWN.net]
Linus has released 6.1-rc1 and closed the merge window for this development cycle.
The typical malicious clickbait from Simon Sharwood:
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Linus Torvalds to kernel devs: Grow up and stop pulling all-nighters just before deadline
Linux kernel boss Linus Torvalds has released the first release candidate for version 6.1 of the project and added an appeal for developers to make his life easier by adding code earlier in the development cycle.
Work on each new cut of the kernel commences with a two week "merge window" during which developers are encouraged to add whatever it is they want included in the next version.
In his weekly state of the kernel update Torvalds declared version 6.1 "isn't actually shaping up to be a particularly large release: we 'only' have 11.5k non-merge commits during this merge window, compared to 13.5k last time around."
He therefore rated version 6.1 "not exactly tiny, but smaller than the last few releases. At least in number of commits."