And after the launch of the important 5.8 and first maintenance update, is already in charge of the main maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linus Torvalds launched Linux 5.9-rc1. Unlike the current stable version, the one that has entered development is much more normal, so much so that the e-mail sent by the father of Linux is short, much if we take into account that it is that of a first Release Candidate.
According to Torvalds, the only thing that stands out is the changes made to the AMDGPU kernel driver. Due to the introduction for Navi 2 of "Sienna Cichlid" and "Navy Flounder", automatically generated header files have been added for the new lenses. So AMDGPU has caused the delta size to increase, although only because header files have been added. On the other hand, the changes to the AMDGPU itself are simpler.
Linux 5.9-rc1 only stands out for changes in AMDGPU
The only thing that stands out is another AMD GPU header file tucked in, but at this point that counts as "usual" too. It means that the diff stats are dominated by those AMD updates, and almost exactly half of the diff is under drivers / gpu / drm / amd /, but it's the usual thing in registry definitions (presumably once again generated from hw files) and it doesn't really matter in the big picture.
Taking into account that this rc1 was launched yesterday, August 16 and that seven are usually released before delivering the stable version, Linux 5.9 should arrive on october 4, the 11 if it requires a rc8. Therefore, it will not arrive in time to be included in the Ubuntu 20.10 Groovy Gorilla that will be released on October 22. Users interested in enjoying it when the time comes, something that I personally never recommend because I prefer to use the version of the kernel that my distribution offers me, will have to perform the manual installation.