Linux 5.9-rc1 Kernel Released - Line Count Dominated By AMD Radeon Navi 2 Additions

As expected Linus Torvalds has christened Linux 5.9-rc1 to mark the end of the merge window and new feature development of Linux 5.9 as another featureful update that will debut as stable this autumn.

Linus noted that by line of code count, Linux 5.9 is fairly normal if ignoring the big header file additions coming once again to the AMDGPU kernel driver. Due to the "Sienna Cichlid" and "Navy Flounder" GPU additions for Navi 2, there is yet again big auto-generated header file additions for the new targets. So AMDGPU leads in the most lines of code changes and inflates the size of the delta albeit is mostly header file additions while the actual AMDGPU code changes are more modest.

The very brief Linux 5.9-rc1 release announcement can be read on the kernel mailing list.

See our original Linux 5.9 feature overview to learn about all of the big changes coming in this release. Linux 5.9 stable should be out in early to mid October depending upon how the release cycle ultimately plays out.