Linus Torvalds just released Linux 6.17-rc4 as the newest weekly test release of [1]Linux 6.17 in working toward the stable release in late September.

Notable changes incorporated into the Linux 6.17-rc4 kernel include [2]Linus Torvalds now marking Bcachefs as "externally maintained" as a result of the ongoing friction and differing views over pull requests. So for the near-future at least it looks like the in-tree Bcachefs file-system won't be seeing any further feature updates.

Linux 6.17-rc4 also includes [3]a TSC fix for old Intel Pentium 4 processors . There is also [4]support for the Logitech G PRO 2 LIGHTSPEED mouse, Wacom Art Pen 2 tablet, ELECON M-DT2DR8K, and improved Lenovo Legion Go input support as part of fixes for Linux 6.17.

In today's [5]v6.17-rc4 announcement Linus Torvalds wrote:

"Anyway, last week felt pretty normal, and rc4 stats bear that out, both in commit numbers and in the diffstat. Nothing strange jumps out at you: there's one slightly larger driver fix series (Intel idpf network driver: "infrastructure data path function driver"), and some arm64 kvm system register handling updates that are slightly bigger, but honestly neither of those are exactly huge - and the rest of rc4 really is just one-liners and few-lines.

So it all looks fairly good.

Please do keep testing, and we'll get 6.17 out in a timely manner and in good shape."

Linux 6.17 stable will hopefully be shipping by the end of September and [6]includes many great changes .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+6.17

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Bcachefs-Externally-Maintained

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.17-Pentium-4-Fix

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.17-HID-New-IDs

[5] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=whHNCj4Xw5xWoKhgP0BAOe0msFRVXKSQku9Qgxhc0eHbQ@mail.gmail.com/T/#u

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-617-features