Linux 3.1-rc4: Bigger Than Its Predecessor

Linus Torvalds has released the Linux 3.1-rc4 kernel to end out the weekend. Unfortunately this kernel is on a trend he doesn't like: there's an up-tick in the commit rate compared to the previous release candidate for the Linux 3.1 kernel.

Besides this week's RC carrying more commits, there's also some fairly large changes in Linux 3.1-rc4, that are for the ISCSI target and some hardware drivers. Most of the changes in the fourth release candidate, however, are trivial.

While the Linux 3.1-rc4 kernel may not be the ideal fitness Linus would like, he is hoping 3.1-rc5 will be smaller and overall he is still happy about the state of the Linux 3.1 kernel.

See this article for details on some of the features to expect from the Linux 3.1 kernel. It will be just a few weeks until the Linux 3.1 kernel is released and then the Linux 3.2 kernel should open up during Oktoberfest 2011. Below is the Linux 3.1-rc4 release announcement from Linus.

We're back on track on weekly -rc releases.

I don't know what to say about this one. -rc3 had fewer new commits than -rc4 does, and I don't like that trend. I'm not happy about the size of some of the changes (iscsi target, some other random drivers), but at the same time I have to say that absolutely nothing here makes me feel worried. Most of the changes are *really* trivial, and the ones that are a bit bigger tend to be to pretty esoteric areas. For example, sparc shows up in the dirstat as one of the bigger changes, and that's just because there's a biggish signal handling change to fix a rather obscure test. But for the life of me I can't really get worried about it.

Or how about the wiimote driver changes? Or the iscsi target changes?

In other words, most people won't notice - and the remaining stuff is really small one-liners spread out (mostly in drivers). If you look at the old-style - non-rename-aware - patches, the XFS changes look big and scary, but they're all just file renames.

Anyway, go wild and please do test. The appended shortlog gives a reasonable idea of the changes, but they really aren't that big.

So I definitely *am* hoping that -rc5 will be smaller. But at the same time, I continue to be pretty happy about the state of 3.1 so far. But maybe it's just that my meds are finally working.

Linus "I don't think I've really flamed anybody this week" Torvalds