Linux 5.16-rc3 Released With Alder Lake ITMT Fix, Other Driver Fixes

Linus Torvalds just released Linux 5.16-rc3 with plenty of fixes included. With it being US Thanksgiving week, he's also having fun with this kernel by having adjusted the codename to "Gobble Gobble" in reference to turkeys.

In today's 5.16-rc3 announcement, Torvalds noted, "So rc3 is usually a bit larger than rc2 just because people had some time to start finding things. So too this time, although it's not like this is a particularly big rc3. Possibly partly due to the past week having been Thanksgiving week here in the US. But the size is well within the normal range, so if that's a factor, it's not been a big one."

Notable with Linux 5.16-rc3 is the ITMT fix affecting some Intel Alder Lake systems that with some motherboards could lead to improper P vs. E core selection. That is now fixed although the cluster-aware scheduling may still be causing some issues with 5.16.

Another notable "fix" this week is getting FUTEX2 futex_waitv working on more CPU architectures.

The rest of Linux 5.16-rc3 is largely the usual assortment of bug fixing.

Linux 5.16 stable should be out around the tail end of the calendar year. See our Linux 5.16 feature overview for a look at the major features of this forthcoming kernel. Additional Linux 5.16 benchmarks and other performance investigations ongoing.