The FUSE implementation for supporting file-systems in user-space is seeing important kernel work merged for Linux 5.10.

Independent Linux kernel developer Con Kolivas (and retired anaesthetist) is back on track with a new update to his "CK" patch-set and the MuQSS scheduler.

The "char/misc" area within the Linux kernel continues to have a bit of everything as the "catch all" pull request of the kernel not fitting into other existing subsystems.

Building off Linux 5.9 that featured initial support for Gen12 graphics on next year's Rocket Lake desktop platform along with other early enablement for Rocket Lake like RAPL support and other PCI ID additions, that work has continued for the Linux 5.10 cycle.

The Linux 5.10 kernel "staging" changes have the usual assortment of changes throughout this area where premature kernel code goes prior to proving itself and meeting kernel coding quality standards.

The perf tool updates have been sent in for the ongoing Linux 5.10 merge window.

The direct rendering manager (DRM) driver updates were sent in overnight for the ongoing Linux 5.10 merge window with a range of improvements for these graphics/display drivers and as usual the Intel and AMD Radeon driver churn is particularly heavy.

The Linux kernel's fundamental printk() function for printing messages at various log levels for then accessing via the likes of dmesg is beginning to see a significant overhaul.

The Linux kernel's prandom_u32() interface for providing pseudo-random number generation is used heavily by the kernel's networking code but that PRNG output can be figured out rather predictably. Thus lining up for Linux 5.10 is a new prandom_u32 implementation.

The Btrfs file-system is seeing some promising additions with Linux 5.10.

Ingo Molnar as usual is quite quick in submitting his changes for the new kernel merge window in the areas he oversees. With the scheduler changes for Linux 5.10 there are some changes worth mentioning.

On this first official day of breaking open Linux 5.10 for development with its merge window, quite a number of noteworthy Intel and AMD x86 processor changes have already been sent in for landing.

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 5.9 as stable.

Given the impending release of Linux 5.9, I was having some fun with cloc today looking at the current lines of code count for this near-final Linux 5.9 kernel state.

The Linux 5.9 kernel is expected for release this evening which will in turn kick off the Linux 5.10 merge window for the next two weeks. As we've already been closely monitoring the various "-next" development trees in recent weeks of material building up for this next cycle, here is a look at a portion of what's to come for this late 2020 kernel.

Tencent developers have proposed "DMEMFS" as a virtual file-system with the intent of helping to save system memory on large servers such as in public cloud environments.

Canonical kernel engineer Andrea Righi has sent out an updated patch series implementing opportunistic memory reclaim support as a way of forcing the kernel to attempt to reclaim system memory.

While normally the Linux kernel sees its stable releases after about seven weeks worth of release candidates, today Linux 5.9-rc8 was issued in allowing an extra week of testing.

The Linux 5.9 kernel could be released as soon as today but more than likely will be pushed back to next Sunday given Torvalds' comments last week and continuing to see plenty of merge requests in recent days. But in any case when Linux 5.9 does ship very soon it comes with an abundance of new features and improvements.

Linux 5.10 will bring a new driver for the Intel MAX10 BMC.

It's always great starting off a new month seeing new work on low-level kernel optimizations.

NVIDIA software engineer Zi Yan sent out on Monday his latest "1GB PUD THP" patches in aiming to boost application performance on Linux for software making use of large amounts of RAM.

Rob Clark who founded the Freedreno/MSM driver project and current Googler sent in the MSM direct rendering manager driver updates targeting the upcoming Linux 5.10 merge window. This time around the Adreno kernel graphics/display driver has some notable additions.

Linus Torvalds just released Linux 5.9-rc7 as the newest weekly test candidate for Linux 5.9. Due to the regressions encountered this cycle and prominent issues being resolved late, he's looking at releasing Linux 5.9 in two weeks time rather than next week.

The sixth weekly release candidate to Linux 5.9 is now available with at least two notable changes in particular.

Going on for more than four years now has been creating a new /dev/random implementation and this Friday marks the 35th revision to this big set of patches that aim for better performance and security.

Linus Torvalds has decided to do away with the "soft scrollback" functionality found in the FBCON and VGACON kernel code as a sign of the times.

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.

While Zen 3 is just around the corner, current-generation Ryzen Threadripper and EPYC processors continue to impress particularly for build boxes and tasks like bisecting the Linux kernel's massive codebase.

The big set of patches for Raspberry Pi 4 / BCM2711 display support with the VC4 DRM driver will finally be merged next month for the Linux 5.10 cycle.