A week ago, Linus Torvalds released a rc2 of the Linux kernel you are developing with hardly any news. Yesterday He launched which will be the first RC of three that will launch in the Christmas period, a Linux 5.5-rc3 which is bigger than rc2. Torvalds reminds us that it is normal, that this is what the «rc3 is bigger than rc2«, But this time it is even a little bigger, the biggest for quite some time.
What they did introduce in Linux 5.5-rc3 are many changes in the form of fixes. And it is that in the first two Release Candidates of this version of the kernel many bugs and regressions were introduced that have begun to correct this week. Torvalds says he expects this rc3 to be an isolated case, which means that he believes that everything will start to calm down next week, even if Christmas and its celebrations increase.
Linux 5.5-rc3 is once again a very large Release Candidate
But the Christmas preparation does not seem to have (yet) impacted the current development: it is bigger than rc2. Of course, «rc3 is larger than rc2 ″ is almost always true, but this time it's a bit bigger and just looking at the commit count, this is one of the biggest rc3s we've ever had in quite some time.
Of the work done, diffstat it has taken much of the cake, followed by the drivers, where they have only removed a few tools. On the other hand and as usual, they have also introduced improvements in file systems, networks and have updated architectures.
Linux 5.5 will be released at the end of January or early February, so it is possible that it is the one that includes Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa and all its official flavors. Between his most outstanding news we will have things like that the Linux 5.5 LivePatch will follow the system state to better manage patches, updates for the Intel Speed Select tool or FSCRYPT online encryption support