Linux 7.0-rc6 was just released in quickly working toward the stable [1]Linux 7.0 release in mid-April. This was another busy week with lots of bug fixes.

The Linux 7.0 cycle has been quite heavy on the fixes side since the merge window and it continued this week. Landing for Linux 7.0-rc6 were [2]rather a lot of EXT4 file-system fixes , x86 fixes for Intel TDX and AMD SEV-SNP VMs, [3]numerous audio hardware quirks/fixes especially for laptops, and a variety of other fixes throughout the kernel tree.

Outside of fixes, there were [4]some new device ID additions to the x86 platform drivers primarily for Intel/AMD laptops.

Linus Torvalds wrote of this week's 7.0-rc6 in the [5]release announcement as:

"It turns out that rc5 finally starting to calm things down this release cycle was a mirage - with rc6 we're back to many more fixes than are normal for this time in the release.

It's not like anything in here looks particularly alarming, but the fact that the rc's this release has been pretty consistently bigger than normal doesn't exactly give me the warm and fuzzies.

And it's not because the merge window was particularly big: rc1 was in fact pretty average in number of commits. It's just the rc's that have more small fixes than is the norm.

This time around, filesystems kind of stand out, with a noticeable portion of the diffstat being various filesystem or vfs fixes (ext4 and xfs leading the pack, but it's really pretty widespread).

There are obviously the usual driver fixes too: gpu, rdma, networking, sound, hwmon etc, but in the diff, drivers are "only" a third of the changes. In addition to the filesystem side, we've got core networking, architecture updates, and the rest being a random mix (rcu fixes, tooling, mm, you name it).

At the same time, while we have noticeably many more fixes than usual, most of it is very small and none of it strikes me as being very scary. A lot of pretty trivial - but real - fixes. I wonder if some of it is just AI tools being better - and we've hit some "bump" related to that.

Anyway, exactly because it's just "more than usual" rather than feeling *worse* than usual, I don't currently feel this merits extending the release, and I still hope that next weekend will be the last rc. But it's just a bit unnerving how this release doesn't want to calm down, so no promises."

So if all goes well and according to plan, Linux 7.0-rc7 will be out next Sunday (5 April) and then Linux 7.0 stable out on 12 April. But if things are still coming in heavy, there is the possibility of a 7.0-rc8 that would then delay Linux 7.0 final to 9 April.

See our [6]Linux 7.0 feature list for a look at all of the changes coming into this next kernel release. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is set to be among the first distributions in April shipping with Linux 7.0.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+7.0

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.0-rc6-EXT4-Fixes

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.0-rc6-Many-Audio-Fixes

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.0-rc6-More-Platform-Drv

[5] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wgLvq1LucHhxjiPwDBkMRk=54Zh=-FmUdevXJyHygc=9A@mail.gmail.com/T/#u

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