After the storm comes the calm. Or that is the impression that we are getting if we compare the development of the last two versions of the Linux kernel. Yesterday, Linus Torvalds He launched Linux 5.9-rc2 and, like last week with the rc1, everything is looking very normal, which is in contrast to the ups and downs in the development of v5.8 of the Linux kernel. Although all that was also within "normality", since 20% of the code was modified.
As read in the email, what stands out the most, in addition to various random corrections and updates, are the EXT4 file system changes, which has taken about 20% of this week's patch. That is what has caused this RC to increase somewhat in size, followed by the usual driver updates, such as sound, GPU, network, scsi or vfio.
Linux 5.9-rc2 does not include great news either
Nothing in particular stands out, there is a random collection of fixes and updates here. It's maybe a bit heavy filesystem, because ext4 updates were late, so it's a bit unusual that we have more than 20% of the patch per fs /, and that's the biggest part here after the usual updates drivers (sound, gpu, networks, scsi, vfio). Other than that it's mostly about architecture fixes and some tool fixes, with a few other things.
Considering deadlines, 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.