In the last 4 weeks, Linus Torvalds has been releasing Linux 5.4 Release Candidates and he always said the same thing: the size was being smaller than usual when compared to previous version releases. For our part, we said that "the news is that there is no news." Well, all that has changed this week because Linux 5.4-rc5 is bigger than expected, even more than in launches that should be larger at first.
As always, and it seems that the father of Linux never gets nervous, Torvalds is not worried. What he thinks is that this Release Candidate is big precisely because he has picked up all the size that he has been missing in other weeks, although he says that it is not a huge increase. Therefore, everything is quite normal for him and none of the patches seem worrisome to him.
Linux 5.4 will be official next month
In a new déjà vu, Torvalds says he has to travel around Europe this week, but none of the travel should hurt the development of the next release. Among other things, because he expects from rc6 start to calm down all for being close to the launch of the stable version.
Torvalds usually releases 7 Release Candidates before the stable version, which means Linux 5.4 should be officially launched on November 17. If it comes across a stone in the way, it will release an eighth Release Candidate, which would mean that the stable version will be released on the 24th of next month. Only a tragedy would cause it to be launched already in December.
Linux 5.4 it won't be as big a release as Linux 5.3 which already includes Ubuntu and all its official flavors, but it is a bit more controversial because it is the version that will include the security module Lockdown. In any case, it will be disabled by default, which together with our confidence in Linux, I think gives us reason not to worry.