Linux 6.1-rc8 Released For An Extra Week Of Kernel Testing

As was expected following an uptick in kernel patches mid-to-late in the cycle, Linus Torvalds today opted to issue Linux 6.1-rc8 rather than going straight to the stable release for Linux 6.1, which is also expected to serve as this year's Long Term Support (LTS) kernel.

With Linux 6.1-rc8, fortunately things have begun to calm down following a busy past few weeks. But still Linus sided with caution and issued this extra release candidate. He commented in the 6.1-rc8 announcement:

So we've finally started calming down, and rc8 is noticeably smaller than previous release candidates.

So everything looks good, and while the calming down may have happened later than I wished for, it did happen. Let's hope this upcoming week is as quiet (or quieter).

A bit notable with Linux 6.1-rc8 among the mostly mundane fixes is a performance regression fix landing today by reverting an earlier change.

See the Linux 6.1 feature overview to learn more about this 2022 LTS kernel version.

Look for Linux 6.1 stable to debut next Sunday, 11 December.