Linux 6.19 Delays

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 19, 2026,
updated Jan 20, 2026

• Neowin ☛ Linus Torvalds signals likely delay for final Linux 6.19 release [Ed: He wasted time learning proprietary Microsoft GitHub]

  Holiday disruptions and a surge in late code submissions mean Linux 6.19 is probably getting an extra week of testing before its official debut.

• LWN ☛ Kernel prepatch 6.19-rc6

  Linus has released 6.19-rc6 for testing. ""So we finally ended up with a slightly bigger rc than usual for this stage in the release cycle, but it's not _that_ big, and things still seem quite stable and civilized.""

• LWN ☛ Linux 6.19-rc6

  So we finally ended up with a slightly bigger rc than usual for this
  stage in the release cycle, but it's not _that_ big, and things still
  seem quite stable and civilized. IOW, I'm just chalking this all up to
  some pent-up work from the holidays, although it might also just be
  random fluctuations in the pull request timings. Things started out
  pretty calm the last week, and a lot of the work came in over the
  weekend. Which is not unusual, but it was perhaps even more pronounced
  than it sometimes is.
  
  
  Anyway, the slightly larger size does make me think that my plan to do
  an extra rc8 remains reasonable, even if the whole "nothing looks odd
  or scary" means that it probably isn't really a hard requirement.
  
  
  The diffstat looks pretty normal, with drivers (all together now:
  networking and gpu dominates) being about a third of it all, with the
  rest being all the usual suspects: a fair amount of selftests, some
  documentation, some arch updates, and various core kernel, mm and
  filesystem updates.
  
  
  Go forth and test, and report any issues you find. Thanks,
  
  
             Linus
  

Update

More here:

• Linux 6.19 hits speed bump before final release

  The Linux 6.19 kernel development cycle has hit a speed bump. Linus Torvalds confirmed that release candidate 6 arrived larger than usual, making an eighth RC increasingly likely, adding an extra testing week. Holiday catch-up work and timing fluctuations are the culprits, though the code remains stable.

  Torvalds noted this week that RC6 is slightly larger than typical for this stage. While he isn’t overly concerned, he stated that “the slightly larger size does make me think that my plan to do an extra RC8 remains reasonable.” The reasons are straightforward enough. Developers catching up after the Christmas and New Year break contributed to the bulge. Another factor is simply timing: more pull requests arrived simultaneously over the week.

  Despite the larger release, there’s no panic. Torvalds emphasized the code is stable and “not chaotic,” with no show-stopper bugs or scary architectural problems lurking. Standard kernel cycles usually go to RC7 before the final release, as Neowin notes. An RC8 adds an extra week of testing. If it materializes, it will ensure the pent-up work hasn’t introduced subtle regressions. Given the fundamental nature of an OS kernel, no one involved in the process of updating it would prefer a rushed release.