Linux 3.2-rc5: Santa Doesn't Like Linus Cursing

The fifth release candidate for the Linux 3.2 kernel is now available. Development still hasn't calmed down for this development cycle, but Linus Torvalds hopes it will change soon as "Santa doesn't like it when I curse a lot in email."

Linus begins the 3.2-rc5 release announcement by saying. "I'm sad to report that -rc5 is bigger (at least in number of commits - most of the commits are pretty small, so it's possible that the *diff* ends up being smaller, but I didn't check) than both -rc2 and -rc4 were."

With the Linux 3.2-rc5 kernel there's various updates for x86/perf, XFS, Btrfs, graphics DRM, network, and other areas.

Linus forewarns he will be pushing back on some work so that the Linux 3.2 kernel can settle down soon. "So I'm going to continue to push back a bit on people sending me stuff, but I'm also just going to hope that this was some one-time thing and we really will be calming down now." This message comes just days after another Linus DRM rant where he rejected the pull request.

Read this article to find out about some of the features of the Linux 3.2 kernel, which will find its way into Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" and various other Linux distributions. It will still be a few more weeks until this kernel is golden and the Linux 3.3 kernel development begins in full-speed to kick-off 2012.