Linux 5.9-rc5 Looks Fairly Normal Aside From Wildfires + Performance Regression

Linus Torvalds announced Linux 5.9-rc5 this evening as the newest weekly test release of the forthcoming Linux 5.9 kernel gearing up for a stable release in October.

Code wise for what has landed over the past week everything has looked normal. There were some reverts while the new code is all roughly in line with expectations for this stage of the kernel cycle.

Living outside of Portland, Oregon with wildfires currently ravaging the US west coast, Torvalds commented that "Things look fairly normal (except when I look out the window, and the world is all gray from the wildfires) and nothing huge here stands out."

Linus went on to add in the 5.9-rc5 announcement, "So aside from the smoke from the fires, and a performance regression I'm still looking at, things look normal. [ I feel like I should insert the "This is fine" dog cartoon meme here as the world burns around me ] Stay inside (if you're on the US West coast, at least), stay safe, but please test."

The performance regression being referred to is the one pointed out last week on Phoronix (and no, not the I/O change or the kernel regression hitting TensorFlow Lite that was bisected too last week, but the Linux 5.9 change around the page lock fairness). See today's The Latest On The Linux 5.9 Kernel Regression Stemming From Page Lock Fairness for more details.

We'll see what Linus decides to do about that regression but hopefully the rest of the Linux 5.9 cycle will go smooth. See our Linux 5.9 feature overview to learn about all of the new changes coming with this kernel release in a few weeks.