Linus Torvalds Announces First Linux Kernel 6.6 Release Candidate
It’s been two weeks since the release of Linux kernel 6.5, which means that the merge window for Linux kernel 6.6 is now officially closed and the first Release Candidate is now available for download for early adopters, developers, and everyone else who wants to get an early taste of the next major Linux release.
Linux kernel 6.6 will come with many new features and improved hardware support, as expected from a new kernel series. Some highlights include new Intel IVSC MEI drivers, a new firmware-attributes driver for changing BIOS settings from within Linux on HP devices, charger mode, middle fan and eGPU settings support for ASUS devices, and keyboard backlight control support for more Lenovo IdeaPad devices.
Update (by Roy)
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Linux 6.6-rc1
Here we are, two weeks later, and the merge window is closed.
All the stats for 6.6 look fairly normal so far - as always, the bulk of the patch is drivers (a bit of everything, but networking and gpu are the two biggest areas), with arch updates coming in as a notable second, and then we have tooling and documentation.
There's obviously core kernel updates too (filesystem updates, networking, core VM updates etc) but yeah, all the hardware support - whether drivers or CPUs - tends to just dwarf all the core changes in the diffstat.
And as always, there are way too many individual changes - or even developers - to list for the merge window. We've got 12k+ commits from 1700+ individual developers, And 800+ merges to tie it all together. All that is actually quite normal, this seems to be shaping up to be neither a very small nor a particularly large release.
So below is just my "merge log" which gives some flavor of what got merged, but does not delve into the details. For those, you'd have to go to the actual git tree.
Please do give it all a whirl,
Linus -
Kernel prepatch 6.6-rc1