6.0 will introduce a lot of new features to the Linux kernel, but that is not being reflected in its development at all. We have already 4 RC, and in none have we read Torvalds say that he has found something strange, not even in terms of size. A few hours ago He launched Linux 6.0-rc4, and the mail he sent explains so little that you have it later in its entirety. What surprises me the most is that he doesn't mention size, which is one of the things he always comments on.
He did say that "and things still look pretty normal for the most part«, but without giving details about what normality he refers to. It could mean that Linux 6.0-rc4 is the size it should be this week, or that you just haven't found anything that jumps out at you, but left it at that. quite normal.
Linux 6.0-rc4 is pretty normal
It's Sunday afternoon, which can only mean one thing: another rc release. We're up to rc4, and things for the most part still seem pretty normal.
Most of the fixes in the past week have been driver fixes (gpu, networking, gpio, tty, usb, sound… a bit of everything in other words). But we also have the usual mix of fixes elsewhere - architecture fixes (arm64, loongarch, powerpc, RISC-V, s390 and x86), and various other areas - core networking, filesystems, io_uring, LSM, self-tests and documentation. Some of this is reversals of things that just turned out to be wrong or weren't quite ready.
With the development path of 6.0, it is easy to think that it will arrive after seven RCs, so the October 2. Ubuntu 22.10 is already using Linux 5.19, and that is expected to be the final version, so those who want to use v6.0 will have to install it on their own, either manually or with tools like Mainline.