Linux Kernel Development Zooms Along With 6.0 Release Candidate 2

After only a week, Linus Torvalds has dropped another Linux kernel release candidate. What’s new in this version?

Just a week after announcing the first Linux 6.0 release candidate, Linus Torvalds is back with the second release candidate for the Linux kernel.

What’s Changed in the Linux 6.0 Release Candidate 2?

Torvalds once again downplayed the significance of the release.

“Nothing particularly interesting here, rc2 tends to be fairly calm with people taking a breather and not yet having found a lot of bugs,” he wrote in a message to the Linux Kernel Mailing List

Still, the release candidate does come with the usual round of bug fixes. Torvalds noted updates that smoothed out problems running tests on Google cloud virtual machines.

The kernel also includes some meat-and-potatoes bug fixes to networking and storage drivers. This release will still mainly be of interest to developers and distribution maintainers.

Torvalds stressed when he announced the first 6.0 release candidate that there weren’t any fundamental changes in the kernel. The second release candidate’s incremental changes seem to bear this out.

Getting the 6.0 Release Candidate

Expert users and developers eager to try the new kernel can download it directly from the Linux kernel website or browse the source code on its Git repository. Because this is a release candidate, potential users should still be wary of bugs. It should still give users an idea of what to expect down the line when the regular release comes out.

Most users will just want to wait for their distribution to package the kernel. Many distros will likely opt to use the other “long-term support” kernels instead.

Announcement Demonstrates Fast Linux Development Pace

Torvalds’ announcement of a second release candidate a week after the first one shows how fast Linux kernel development moves. While proprietary OSes seem to be developed at a glacial pace, Linux developers can coordinate over the internet to come out with updates quickly.

The long list of contributors with every Linux kernel announcement is evidence of how much Torvalds’ project has grown over 30 years after he announced it in late 1991.

Major Open Source Program Moves On

It’s no secret that Linux is an important project that powers many servers. Upgrading the kernel used to be a rite of passage for many Linux users, but modern distributions handle this task for most users. Power users still like having newer versions and tools like Ukuu make managing kernel versions easier for Ubuntu users.