14 DAY TRIAL // Linus Torvalds has just announced that Linux kernel 4.2 RC6 is now out and ready for testing. It's a much more tempered release, and it looks like the cycle is calming down.
Linus started this cycle by praising the developers for providing one of the biggest releases made until now, but he soon realized that they weren't stopping with the patches. His joy of seeing a large number of developers pushing patches quickly turned to anger when RC5 also proved to be bigger than he expected.
RC5 is usually passed at the halfway point in the cycle, so it's easy to understand why Linus doesn't like big changes so late. It takes time to test everything and to determine if a release is stable. That means that activity on the developing front must slow down towards the end. Fortunately, Linus seems to be happy again, so it must mean that things are going back to normal.
The stable version of Linux kernel 4.2 RC6 is not far away
A regular Linux cycle usually takes about eight weeks, give or take, if a new version is made available each week. A new stable Linux kernel should be released soon, and it will probably be adopted by numerous distributions.
"So last week I wasn't very happy about the state of the release candidates, but things are looking up. Not only is rc6 finally shrinking noticeably, the issues I was worried about had fixes come in early in the week, and so I don't have anything big pending. Assuming nothing new comes up, I suspect we will end up with the regular release schedule after all (ie in two weeks). Knock wood," writes Linus in the official announcement.
As usual, you can download Linux kernel 4.2 RC6 from Softpedia, but please keep in mind that this is the source, and it has to be compiled. Don't use a production machine.