Linus Torvalds just issued Linux 7.0-rc5 as we inch toward the stable [1]Linux 7.0 kernel release in April.

With Linux 7.0-rc5 there are various bug and regression fixes that accumulated over the past week as we move toward the end of the cycle. Some of the Linux 7.0-rc5 changes that stand out include [2]a workaround in Radeon and AMDGPU drivers for the old GCN 1.0 era Hainan GPUs and [3]better support for the Logitech MX Master 4 Bluetooth mouse as items that stood out to me in monitoring the patch flow for the past week.

Linus Torvalds wrote in today's [4]7.0-rc5 announcement :

"It looks like things are starting to calm down - rc5 is smaller than the previous rc's this merge window, although it still tracks a bit larger than rc5s historically do. I'll still take it as a good sign overall.

The diffstat looks fairly normal - half drivers (gpu and networking, but unusually some serial updates too). But on the whole it's all pretty small - most of the commits are small few-liners.

Outside of drivers, it's the usual mixed bag - core networking, some filesystem updates, bpf, selftests and some architecture fixes.

So while the rc's have trended bigger than usual this release, on the whole it all continues to look fairly innocuous. Please keep testing,"

In case you missed it, see our [5]Linux 7.0 feature overview for a look at all of the interesting changes coming to this next stable kernel release in April.



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

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Hainan-Fix-Linux-7.0

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.0-MX-Master-4

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.0-rc5-Released

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