As we approach the stable [1]Linux 6.16 kernel release later this month, Linux 6.16-rc6 is out today as the newest weekly test candidate.

With the just-released Linux 6.16-rc6 kernel there is the patches for the [2]Transient Scheduler Attacks mitigations that were made public this week and affecting AMD Zen 3 / Zen 4 processors. The Transient Scheduler Attacks "TSA" kernel code was [3]already back-ported to the stable Linux kernel versions and is now part of the 6.16-rc6 tag too after landing in Git this past Tuesday.

Linux 6.16-rc6 on the AMD side also [4]fixes issues with some AMD Zen 2 cores in Cyan Skillfish that weren't even supposed to run on Linux .

On the Intel side, the Linux 6.16-rc6 MAINTAINERS file is updated to reflect [5]a high profile Intel Linux engineer leaving the company after 14 years and thus shifting work over from his Intel email address to his personal Kernel.org email address.

Linux 6.16-rc6 also brings [6]some Bcachefs fixes, including for some high severity regressions .

Plus in Linux 6.16-rc6 is an assortment of other bug/regression fixes for the week.

If all goes well Linux 6.16 stable could be out two weeks from today on 27 July. There are [7]many exciting features and changes with Linux 6.16 .

Update: Linus Torvalds is now out with his [8]6.16-rc6 announcement :

"So I had a little scare this week, noticing some odd instability on Thursday, and basically then lost a day to trying to figure that whole thing out. The fix ended up being a simple revert in the end, but for a while there I was getting "Uh-oh, we're in trouble" vibes, because I had trouble reproducing the issue consistently, and it wasn't at all obvious even what subsystem had broken things.

So I was flailing around blaming everybody and their pet hamster, because for a while it looked like a drm issue and then a netlink problem (it superficially coincided with separate issues with both of those subsystems).

But I did eventually figure out how to trigger it reliably and then it bisected nicely, and a couple of days have passed, and I'm feeling much better about the release again. We're back on track, and despite that little scare, I think we're in good shape.

Below you'll find the shortlog for the week - no real pattern stands out. It's random fixes spread out fairly evenly, so we've got a bit of everything: drivers, arch fixes, filesystems, networking, tooling, documentation.

We've got a couple more weeks to go for this release, let's hope they go more smoothly than the last one. But please do keep testing,"



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+6.16

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Transient-Scheduler-Attacks

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15.6-Linux-6.12.37-LTS

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.16-rc6-x86-urgent

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Shutemov-Intel-Linux-Leaving

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Bcachefs-Fixes-Linux-6.16-rc6

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-616-features

[8] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wgMZkz3O5d3aHvbw3uN9JyF1Lt1xrpTYdEuZmU7aUYJ3w@mail.gmail.com/T/#u