Linus Torvalds has announced the third release candidate (RC) of upcoming Linux kernel 4.12. The new release consists a small changelog — mainly includes updated drivers and performance improvements.
The Linux 4.12 RC3 is a normal patch consisting updated drivers and certain improvements to core kernel. You will receive updated GPU, SCSI, TTY, NVME and Block drivers. Also, the update comes with certain changes to networking stack, core kernel, XFS, header files and architecture improvements.
“I am hoping there is not another shoe about to drop, but so far this really feels like a nice calm release cycle, despite the size of the merge window,” said Linux creator Linus Torvalds, in a mailing list announcement.
Updated documentation
The major change in the announced release is the updated documentation. The documentation update has converted Intel pstate docs are into RST format.
Torvalds also mentioned some tooling updates. There are mainly improvements related to perf and some bpf selftest.
Four more RCs in way
Looking at the development cycle of Linux kernel 4.12, you can expect four more release candidates in the coming weeks. If all releases happen as planned, the final release of Linux kernel 4.12 will hit the streets in early July.
In the meantime, you can test and download the source tarball of Linux kernel 4.12 RC3 from the kernel.org website. You can also compile it for your GNU/Linux distribution and install the kernel with all the available changes.
