Tras 5.16 and the week in which petitions are collected, Linus Torvalds launched Linux 5.17-rc1. Yes, it has already arrived, at noon in Spain, when it is usual for it to do so at night. The reason for this time change is the same reason for other things: travel. On this occasion, their displacements have had to do with family issues, but what interests us is that there is already a first RC of the next version of the Linux kernel.
Torvalds was a bit concerned that this merge window would end up being more of a problem than usual, but there have been a lot of people who have sent him requests early, so in the end everything has been more or less normal. Of course, if we forget that we are writing this article on Sunday afternoon and not at night or on Monday, as usual.
Linux 5.17-rc1 suggests that we are facing a kernel that will not be too important
5.17 doesn't seem like it's scheduled to be a big release, and everything seems pretty normal. We've got a little more activity than usual in a couple of corners of the kernel (random number generator and fscache stand out), but even with those things, the overall picture looks pretty normal. the overview looks pretty normal: mostly various driver updates, with architecture, documentation and tool updates accounting for the bulk of the rest. Even with a total rewrite, that fscache difference seems like more of a flicker in the big picture.
Among the most important of what Linux 5.17 will bring we have to much hardware support will be added. As for when it will be available, it is well known that Torvalds releases seven Release Candidates before the stable version, so Linux 5.17 is expected to arrive next on March 13, 20 if there are problems and an eighth RC is necessary. Once again, remember that Ubuntu users who want to install it will eventually have to do it on their own. And, by the way, what Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish will use Linux 5.15.