Linus Torvalds, the brain behind Linux, has announced the release of second release candidate (RC2) for the upcoming Linux Kernel 6.17 on August 17, 2025.
Let's explore what's inside the new Linux 6.17-rc2 release!
What's New in Linux Kernel 6.17 RC2?
In the Linux 6.17-rc2 announcement mail, Linus himself mentioned that this week leading up to 6.17-rc2 was surprisingly quiet.
In fact, he called it one of the smallest rc2 releases we've seen lately. He's hoping this calm trend continues, but he also wondered if perhaps folks were just on holiday in Europe.
So, what did make it in?
- Driver fixes were a big deal: Most fixes landed in drivers.
- We saw lots of updates for block drivers, including the removal of some older code like the
drbdpage pool. - Other drivers getting love included GPU, networking, and sound.
- Some smaller fixes also arrived for SCSI and firewire components. For example, the firewire core received updates to use reference counting for address handlers and to reallocate buffers when needed.
- Beyond drivers, we got updates for filesystems like
smb,xfs,erofs, andbtrfs. - Core networking also received some attention, along with helpful new self-tests.
- Finally, there were some important tweaks for computer architectures, mainly
x86.
Try Linux 6.17-rc2
So, Linux 6.17-rc2 brings some calm and steady improvements, especially to drivers and filesystems. If you're interested to check this release, you can get the latest Linux Kernel 6.17 RC2 from the Kernel.org website or the Linus Torvalds's git tree.
Also do not forget to report the issues if there are any.
