Linux 6.2-rc7 Released - Stable Kernel Coming In Two Weeks

Linus Torvalds just issued the seventh weekly RC release of Linux 6.2 while the stable kernel debut is expected two weeks from today.

For Linux 6.2-rc7 it was a fairly light week where normally Linus Torvalds would be tempted to issue the stable kernel release the following week, but due to the Christmas / New Year's holiday at the start of the merge window and that delaying some of the early kernel testing, Torvalds previously indicated he'd go through an -rc8 release this time to allow for additional testing. Thus while this week was light, he's still inclined to go through with his earlier planning and in turn seeing Linux 6.2 stable arrive on 19 February.

Linus commented in the 6.2-rc7 announcement:

So the 6.2 rc releases are continuing to be fairly small and controlled, to the point where normally I'd just say that this is the last rc. But since I've stated multiple times that I'll do an rc8 due to the holiday start of the release, that's what I'll do. And we do have a few regressions outstanding that Thorsten is tracking, so just as well.

Nothing in here looks all that scary, and we just have smallish fixes all over the tree, in all the usual places. I think the single biggest patch is a race fix to zsmalloc, which I guess is fairly unusual, but I think that's more indicative of everything else being pretty small.

We've got driver fixes (gpu, networking, sound, but a smattering of other stuff too), some core mm stuff (that zsmalloc one dominating), various selftest updates, and just random other things.

See the Linux 6.2 feature overview to learn about all of the prominent changes coming for this first major stable kernel version of 2023.