Tras Linux 5.14, the time has come to develop the next kernel version. A few hours ago, Linus Torvalds launched Linux 5.15-rc1, which you do not expect to be a large series because not many suggestions or commits have been received. In fact, the Finnish developer assures that this is the smallest rc1 of the 5 series, and we must not forget that there have been 15 previous ones.
Among what will be included in this version of the Linux kernel highlights a new NTFS driver, a Microsoft file system that, together with FAT and exFAT, is widely used in all types of drives such as pen drives or SD cards, although in many cases they are sold in exFAT format and it is users who change it to NTFS.
Linux 5.15-rc1 is the smallest RC of the 5 series
So 5.15 is not shaping up to be a particularly large version, at least in number of commits. With just over 10.000 unmerged commits, this is in fact the smallest rc1 we've had in the 5.x series. Normally we are around 12-14 thousand commits. That said, counting commits isn't necessarily the best measure, and that might be particularly true this time around. We have a few new subsystems, notably NTFSv3 and ksmbd. And as a result, when you look at the statistics on the basis of "changed lines", 5.15-rc1 ends up looking much more intermediate. It still doesn't look like a particularly _large_ merge window, but it's not even remotely the smallest.
If there is no octave RC, Linux 5.15 will be released on October 24, which makes it impossible to reach the Ubuntu 21.10 Impish Indri that will land in the form of a stable version on October 14. At the time, anyone who wants to use the new version of the kernel will have to install it on their own, something that I personally do not recommend unless the computer on which we use it has a serious problem.