Linux 5.3
-
Linux 5.3
So we've had a fairly quiet last week, but I think it was good that we ended up having that extra week and the final rc8. Even if the reason for that extra week was my travel schedule rather than any pending issues, we ended up having a few good fixes come in, including some for some bad btrfs behavior. Yeah, there's some unnecessary noise in there too (like the speling fixes), but we also had several last-minute reverts for things that caused issues. One _particularly_ last-minute revert is the top-most commit (ignoring the version change itself) done just before the release, and while it's very annoying, it's perhaps also instructive. What's instructive about it is that I reverted a commit that wasn't actually buggy. In fact, it was doing exactly what it set out to do, and did it very well. In fact it did it _so_ well that the much improved IO patterns it caused then ended up revealing a user-visible regression due to a real bug in a completely unrelated area. The actual details of that regression are not the reason I point that revert out as instructive, though. It's more that it's an instructive example of what counts as a regression, and what the whole "no regressions" kernel rule means. The reverted commit didn't change any API's, and it didn't introduce any new bugs. But it ended up exposing another problem, and as such caused a kernel upgrade to fail for a user. So it got reverted. The point here being that we revert based on user-reported _behavior_, not based on some "it changes the ABI" or "it caused a bug" concept. The problem was really pre-existing, and it just didn't happen to trigger before. The better IO patterns introduced by the change just happened to expose an old bug, and people had grown to depend on the previously benign behavior of that old issue. And never fear, we'll re-introduce the fix that improved on the IO patterns once we've decided just how to handle the fact that we had a bad interaction with an interface that people had then just happened to rely on incidental behavior for before. It's just that we'll have to hash through how to do that (there are no less than three different patches by three different developers being discussed, and there might be more coming...). In the meantime, I reverted the thing that exposed the problem to users for this release, even if I hope it will be re-introduced (perhaps even backported as a stable patch) once we have consensus about the issue it exposed. Take-away from the whole thing: it's not about whether you change the kernel-userspace ABI, or fix a bug, or about whether the old code "should never have worked in the first place". It's about whether something breaks existing users' workflow. Anyway, that was my little aside on the whole regression thing. Since it's that "first rule of kernel programming", I felt it is perhaps worth just bringing it up every once in a while. Other than that aside, I don't find a lot to really talk about last week. Drivers, networking (and network drivers), arch updates, selftests. And a few random fixes in various other corners. The appended shortlog is not overly long, and gives a flavor for the changes. And this obviously means that the merge window for 5.4 is open, and I'll start doing pull requests for that tomorrow. I already have a number of them in my inbox, and I appreciate all the people who got that over and done with early, Linus
-
Linux Kernel 5.3 Officially Released, Here's What's New
Linus Torvalds announced today the release of the Linux 5.3 kernel series, a major that brings several new features, dozens of improvements, and updated drivers.
Two months in the works and eight RC (Release Candidate) builds later, the final Linux 5.3 kernel is now available, bringing quite some interesting additions to improve hardware support, but also the overall performance. Linux kernel 5.3 had an extra Release Candidate because of Linus Torvalds' travel schedule, but it also brought in a few needed fixes.
"Even if the reason for that extra week was my travel schedule rather than any pending issues, we ended up having a few good fixes come in, including some for some bad Btrfs behavior. Yeah, there's some unnecessary noise in there too (like the speling fixes), but we also had several last-minute reverts for things that caused issues," said Linus Torvalds.
-
Linux 5.3 Kernel Released With AMD Navi Support, Intel Speed Select & More
Linus Torvalds just went ahead and released the Linux 5.3 kernel as stable while now opening the Linux 5.4 merge window.
There was some uncertainty whether Linux 5.3 would have to go into extra overtime due to a getrandom() system call issue uncovered by an unrelated EXT4 commit. Linus ended up reverting the EXT4 commit for the time being.
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- 7551 reads
- PDF version
More in Tux Machines
- Highlights
- Front Page
- Latest Headlines
- Archive
- Recent comments
- All-Time Popular Stories
- Hot Topics
- New Members
digiKam 7.7.0 is releasedAfter three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. |
Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
|
Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future TechThe metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. |
today's howtos
|
It is also in Slashdot now
Linux 5.3 Released
By jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
Linux 5.3 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures
Linux Kernel 5.3 Released By Linus Torvalds
Linux Kernel 5.3 Released By Linus Torvalds With Support For AMD Navi GPUs
LWN's coverage
The 5.3 kernel is out
Linus Torvalds releases Linux 5.3
Linus Torvalds releases Linux 5.3: Kernel fixes are about user impact, nothing else
Linux Kernel 5.3 Released, This is What’s New
Linux Kernel 5.3 Released, This is What’s New
Linux Kernel 5.3 released and here is how to install it
Linux Kernel 5.3 released and here is how to install it
Linux 5.3 kernel bundles new
Linux 5.3 kernel bundles new, cuddlier, swear-free Torvalds with AMD Radeon Navi graphics support
Linux Kernel 5.3 released
Linux Kernel 5.3 released: Experimental support for AMD Navi GPU
Linux 5.3 releases with support for AMD Navi GPUs...
Linux 5.3 releases with support for AMD Navi GPUs, Zhaoxin x86 CPUs and power usage improvements
Linux Kernel 5.3
Linux Kernel 5.3