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Linux 5.12-rc1

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Linux

So two weeks have passed since the 5.11 release, and so - like
clockwork - the merge window for 5.12 has closed, and 5.12-rc1 is out
there for your perusal.

That said, we have now have two unusual merge windows in a row: first
we had the holiday season, and this time around the Portland area had
over a quarter million people without electricity because we had a
winter ice storm that took down thousands of trees, and lots of
electricity lines.

So I was actually without electricity for six days of the merge
window, and was seriously considering just extending the merge window
to get everything done.

As you can tell, I didn't do that. To a large part because people were
actually very good about sending in their pull requests, so by the
time I finally got power back, everything was nicely lined up and I
got things merged up ok.

But partly this is also because 5.12 is a smaller release than some
previous ones - and that wasn't due to the lack of electricity, that
showed independently in the statistics in the linux-next tree. Of
course, "smaller" is all relative, but instead of the 12-13+k commits
we've had the last few releases, linux-next this time only had 10+k
commits lined up. So that helped things a bit.

That said, if my delayed merging caused issues for anybody, please
holler and explain to me, and I'll be flexible during the rc2 week.
But that's _not_ a blanket "I'll take late pulls", that's very much a
"if my delayed merge caused problems for some tree, explain why, and
I'll work with you".

Anyway, on to the actual changes. Even if it was a slightly smaller
merge window than previous ones, it's still big enough that appended
is just my usual merge log, not the full list of the 10982 non-merge
commits by 1500+ people. So it's  more of a flavor of the kinds of
things that have happened rather than a deep dive.

The one thing that perhaps stands out is that this release actually
did a fair amount of historical cleanup. Yes, overall we still have
more new lines than we have removed lines, but we did have some spring
cleaning, removing the legacy OPROFILE support (the user tools have
been using the "perf" interface for years), and removing several
legacy SoC platforms and various drivers that no longer make any
sense.

So even if we more than made up for that with all the _new_ drivers
and code we added, that kind of cleanup is always nice to see.

    Linus

Read more

Also: Linux 5.12-rc1 Released As The "Frozen Wasteland" Kernel

More on RC1 of Linux 5.12

  • Kernel prepatch 5.12-rc1

    Linus Torvalds has released 5.12-rc1 (codename now "Frozen wasteland") and closed the merge window despite getting a late start due to bad weather...

  • Linux 5.12 "Frozen Wasteland" rc1 Is Released

    Linux Torvalds managed to release Linux 5.12 rc1 on schedule even though he was without power for six days during the critical merge-window. The Linux kernels Makefile was appropriately updated with a new kernel release NAME = Frozen Wasteland.

Linus Torvalds went six days without electricity

  • Linus Torvalds went six days without electricity, swears smaller 5.12 kernel is co-incidental

    Linux overlord Linus Torvalds has revealed that inclement weather in the USA meant he recently endured six electricity-free days in his Portland, Oregon, home during which he was unable to tend to the kernel. As a result he therefore pondered adding an extra week to the merge window for version 5.12 of the Linux kernel.

    “As you can tell, I didn't do that,” he said in his State of The Kernel update that announced release candidate one of the new Kernel cut. “To a large part because people were actually very good about sending in their pull requests, so by the time I finally got power back, everything was nicely lined up and I got things merged up ok.”

    It wasn’t just penguinistas behaving well that helped. Torvalds said this version of the kernel has received around 10,000 commits. That’s rather fewer than the 12,000 or 13,000 he usually sees.

Linus Torvalds reveals why the latest Linux kernel was almost

  • Linus Torvalds reveals why the latest Linux kernel was almost seriously delayed

    The recent icy storms that battered most of the United States left Linux kernel’s head-honcho Linus Torvalds without electricity, holding up the release of the latest release.

    A resident of Portland, Torvalds even considered delaying the launch of the next development version due to the outage that left over a quarter million people without electricity in the Portland area.

Linus Torvalds battles power cuts

  • Linus Torvalds battles power cuts to keep Linux releases rolling out

    Linux kernel chief Linus Torvalds has announced the first release candidate of Linux 5.12 after a merge window that was hampered by power outages in the US north west.

    It's only been two weeks since stable Linux kernel 5.11 was released, and now the Linux kernel project is back with the first release candidate for version 5.12 after closing its merge window.

Making the news about Linus, not Linux

  • 6 days without electricity: What the inventor of Microsoft Windows-rival Linux did

    Linus Torvalds, the founder of the Linux operating system, recently had to face six days without electricity during the power outages in the North-Western US caused due to the winter storms. He lives in Portland, Oregon and the six-day power outage did not let him tend to the kernel. So, how did the inventor spend his time? By working on the merge window for version 5.12 on the Linux kernel. Torvalds gave the Linux 5.12-rc1 the codename of ‘Frozen Wasteland’ and issued the first release on February 28, as per a report by Phoronix.

    Unable to work on the new kernel cycle due to the six-days-long power cut, Torvalds decided to attend to the Linux 5.12 merge window and succeeded in rolling it out as Linux 5.12-rc1.
    He said in the 5.12-rc1 announcement: “The one thing that perhaps stands out is that this release actually did a fair amount of historical cleanup. Yes, overall we still have more new lines than we have removed lines, but we did have some spring cleaning, removing the legacy OPROFILE support (the user tools have been using the "perf" interface for years), and removing several legacy SoC platforms and various drivers that no longer make any sense."

Linux Kernel 5.12 RC-1 Released with Many ARM Board Support

  • Linux Kernel 5.12 RC-1 Released with Many ARM Board Support

    The merge window for Linux Kernel 5.12 is closed and with that, Linux Kernel 5.12 RC-1 (release candidate) is now released for testing. This release brings many new features and improvements.

    Linux Kernel 5.12 is going to be the second Kernel release of 2021 following the Kernel 5.11. This release is bringing moderate changes across the Kernel modules. The changes are also not that much compared to the prior releases due to the power cut which is faced by Linus Torvalds for winter ice storm.

    [...]

    Overall, many changes are seen on small form factor devices and the addition of drivers for many new devices across vendors in Linux Kernel 5.12 RC-1. Usual changes across the storage and graphics phase. This means it is going to be a quiet Kernel release.

    Linux Kernel 5.12 will be available with mainstream Linux distributions most probably from Q3 2021 onwards. The LTS releases would stick to the current stable Linux Kernel 5.10.

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