Linux 6.7-rc8 Released: A Light Holiday Release With A Couple Fixes

For this New Year's Eve the decision was made to release Linux 6.7-rc8 to allow for an extra week of testing -- and pushing back the Linux 6.8 merge window further past the holidays -- rather than releasing Linux 6.7 stable today. As such, Linux 6.7-rc8 is out for a final week of testing this new kernel.

Earlier this month Linus Torvalds shared his plans for avoiding the Linux 6.7 release on New Year's Eve and to delay the final v6.7 release instead to 7 January and thereby mark the Linux 6.8 merge window opening on 8 January. That's going according to plan with Linux 6.7-rc8 having been released a few minutes ago.

Linus Torvalds wrote in the 6.7-rc8 announcement:

"So as expected, pretty much nothing happened over the holiday week. We've got literally just 45 files changed, and almost a third of those files aren't even kernel code (ie things like selftests, scripting, Kconfig and maintainer file updates). And some of the rest is prep-work and cleanups for future (real) changes.

But we do have a couple of real fixes in there, and I suspect we'll get a few more next week as people come back from their food-induced torpor.

So rc8 is mostly just a placeholder, and a "I do rc's each week, whether they matter or not"...
And hey, regardless of whether all you peeps are interested in testing another rc or not, here's to hoping you all had a good 2023, and wishes for an even better 2024!"

There are many great features of Linux 6.7 for when it ships in one week.