The problem affects a very small number of users

Mar 4, 2015 08:33 GMT  ·  By

Linus Torvalds announced that Linux kernel 4.0 RC2 has been released and is now ready for download and testing. It's a couple of days late to the party, but it's here.

The kernel updates for the development branch are usually done on Sundays, but no such release was made. It felt peculiar because Linus already pushed the 4.x branch out the door and people are waiting to see what's being added and how it will evolve. Having such a big upgrade in the works has gotten a lot of users very curious, but it will take some time until a stable versions is made available.

A kernel development cycle takes about 8-9 weeks in ideal conditions, which means that Linux mustn't be preoccupied with other stuff, like travelling or various events, and no outstanding problems are found. It happened many times that various issues were identified and they required much more testing. That meant the development cycle got longer.

Linux kernel on a Tuesday

People are used to see a new kernel from Linus each Sunday (with the exception of the merge window), so when a new version is released on Tuesday, people tend to read too much into it. There is no need for that. As it turns out, Linus had a very good reason to do that.

"So rc2 missed the usual Sunday afternoon timing, because I spent most of the weekend debugging an issue that happened on an old Mac Mini I have around, and I hate making even early -rc releases with problems on machines that I have direct access to. Even if it only affected old machines that actual developers are unlikely to have or at least use. Today I got the patch from Daniel Vetter to fix it, so instead of doing a Sunday evening rc2, it's a Tuesday morning one. Go get it. It works better for the delay," wrote Linus on the kernel mailing list.

He also took the time to mention that this RC is a little bit smaller than he anticipated, but that probably has to do with the fact that some of the major patches are still pending.

You can download Linux kernel 4.0 RC1 right now from Softpedia. This is the source package and it needs to be compiled, which also means that you really have to know what you are doing.