Two weeks ago, Linus Torvalds released the kernel rc2 he is developing on Friday, two days earlier than expected due to an annoying glitch in the first RC. All that was solved a week later with a XNUMXrd RC that it was somewhat larger than normal, but just barely. A few hours ago, the Finnish developer launched Linux 5.12-rc4, and it seems that everything is on the right track.
In fact, the size above rc3 has become lower in this rc4, and it is once again one of those weeks in which the news is that there is no news. The email you sent this week is quite short, which is an indicator that everything is going as expected at this stage of development. It does mention that something that is never used, the MODULE_SUPPORTED_DEVICE, has been removed, but little else.
Linux 5.12-rc4 is average, a little bit below
Nothing stands out in particular here. The diffstat looks a bit more spaced than maybe it normally would, due to the removal of the (never used) MODULE_SUPPORTED_DEVICE () which causes some trivial line removals in various controllers, but not only did it never do anything, in It really wasn't even that common (that is, it certainly wasn't a "most drivers" situation).
After what happened with the rc2, with a blackout included, at that moment we could have thought that we were facing one of those launches that would require an octave RC, but everything has returned to its way. So, Linux 5.12 will be released next April 18, a week later if there was a problem to solve. Ubuntu users will have to do the installation on our own if we want to use it, since Hirsute Hippo will be planted in Linux 5.11.