Linux 7.3-rc1 is now available for public testing, adding about 560,000 lines to the open-source kernel as AI-assisted bug finding and fixing contribute to larger release candidates.
Linux 7.3-rc1 is now available for public testing, marking the first release candidate of the upcoming open-source Linux 7.3 kernel. The snapshot adds roughly 560,000 lines, taking the kernel from about 40.42 million lines in Linux 7.2 to 40.98 million.
Phoronix’s code-count analysis puts Linux 7.3-rc1 at 30,937,090 detected lines of code, 4,912,366 lines of comments, and 5,134,418 blank lines.
The growth also reflects a changing open-source development process. Linux creator and lead developer Linus Torvalds has previously pointed to the growing use of AI-driven bug finders and automated fixers as a factor behind increasingly large release candidates.
Torvalds described the latest snapshot as unusually large, saying, “Nothing really stands out – except for the fact that it’s big. It’s not the biggest rc1 we’ve ever had, but it’s certainly up there, at least in number of commits.” He added, “I don’t think that surprises anybody anymore,” referring to the size of recent release candidates.
However, raw line counts require context. A single AMD GPU register dump contributes about 6.52 million lines to Linux 7.3-rc1, meaning the total does not represent conventional newly written source code alone.
Linux 7.2 reached its release state roughly two months before the 7.3-rc1 snapshot, highlighting the pace of development.
