Linus Torvalds just released the Linux 6.14-rc5 kernel as the [1]Linux 6.14 stable kernel approaches toward release later in March.

Linux 6.14-rc5 is another rather routine weekly test release. Linus Torvalds commented in the [2]6.14-rc5 announcement :

"Another normal week, nothing strange stands out, and both the shortlog and diffstat look very regular.

About half the patch is drivers (networking and drm dominate, but rdma and sound show up with random noise elsewhere). The rest is fairly spread out - architecture, filesystem, core networking, and more selftests.

Nothing looks particularly big or worrisome."

A few patches to note this week include [3]Christoph Hellwig stepping down as a DMA mapping helpers maintainer as well as for the ConfigFS code following the recent Rust kernel drama. Separately, another notable change for the week is [4]a fix for old Intel Core 2 processors to avoid some possible boot delays / stalls.

There are [5]many great Linux 6.14 features/changes to look forward to with the stable release later this month. Linux 6.14 in turn will be what is to power the upcoming Ubuntu 25.04 and Fedora 42 releases.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+6.14

[2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wiB9Pwwv--oDW_BURx9_F-tNGZFWNi7Lqfm3REGa7PcEw@mail.gmail.com/T/#u

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Hellwig-DMA-Helpers-Removed

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Core-2-Stalls-Boot-Fix

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-614-features