Linus Torvalds, the creator and principal developer of Linux, has released the third release candidate (RC3) for Linux Kernel version 6.11, marking another step towards the final release. Linus described this release as "nothing particularly strange or interesting", indicating a normal development cycle.
Table of Contents
Key Areas of Improvement
The changes in this release candidate are spread across various subsystems, with drivers taking up about half of the modifications. Here's a breakdown of the main areas:
Driver Updates
- Sound
- Graphics (GPU)
- Networking
- USB
- Miscellaneous driver fixes
Other Significant Changes
- Filesystem improvements (bcachefs, btrfs, smb)
- Architecture-specific fixes (arm64, loongarch, x86)
- Documentation updates
- Networking enhancements
- Core kernel and tooling fixes
Filesystem Enhancements
Bcachefs
The bcachefs filesystem saw several improvements, such as:
- Fixed a double free issue with cache device buckets
- Enhanced allocator debugging for erasure coding
- Fixed allocations from read-only devices
- Made the allocator stuck timeout configurable
- Improved device usage reporting
Btrfs
The Btrfs filesystem received multiple updates:
- Fixed qgroup reserve leaks in copy-on-write operations
- Improvements to the scrubbing process and stripe length calculations
- Added a warning about the deprecation of space cache v1
SMB
An issue with setting SecurityFlags when encryption is required for the SMB3 protocol has been addressed.
Architecture-Specific Improvements
ARM64
ARM64 improvements include:
- Adjustments to device tree specifications for Texas Instruments SoCs
- Fixed GPIO ranges for various platforms
LoongArch
The LoongArch architecture saw enhancements:
- Improved page table entry access
- Enabled the general EFI poweroff method
- Fixed KVM-related issues
x86
The x86 architecture received fixes and enhancements:
- Addressed MTRR handling
- Improved Page Table Isolation (PTI) for i386 systems
Networking Improvements
The networking stack received various updates:
- Fixed an off-by-one error in max RSS context IDs
- Improved the vhost-vdpa fault handler
- Enhanced multicast handling in bridge devices
Graphics and Display
The graphics subsystem, particularly AMD and Intel drivers, saw numerous improvements:
- Fixed the GEM shmem test
- Made enhancements to the i915 driver's eviction logic
- Improved error reporting for AMD GPUs
Test Linux Kernel 6.11 RC3
While not introducing any major changes, Kernel 6.11 RC3 has brought a multitude of small improvements and bug fixes across various subsystems.
As usual, Torvalds encourages the users and developers to test the third release candidate of 6.11 by downloading it from the Kernel.org website or the Linus Torvalds's git tree and report any issues they encounter.
This testing phase is important for identifying and resolving any remaining issues before the final release of Linux 6.11.
If the typical development cycle is followed, we can expect the final release of Linux 6.11 on or around September 22, 2024.
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