Linux 6.0 should be with us very soon
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Linux boss Linus Torvalds has optimistically announced that version 6.0 of the open-source operating system will be available to users very soon, despite some minor delays.
according to his September 18 update (opens in new tab) on release candidate six (Linux 6.0-rc6), many maintainers were traveling for the Maintainers’ Summit in Dublin, as well as OSS EU and LPC. For this reason, rc6 was “artificially small”.
Torvalds goes on to discuss the smaller-than-usual size of the release candidate: “Or — I’m putting on my ridiculously optimistic hat — maybe things are just so nice and stable that there just weren’t that many solutions?”
Linux 6.0 release date
Talking about the latest release candidate – rc7 – on the blog (opens in new tab)Torvalds said he expected it to be “larger than usual due to pull requests being pushed back a week later,” which could lead to the Linux operating system needing another release (number 8).
Despite the expectation that rc7 would be a bigger release than usual, “it doesn’t seem to have actually happened” according to Torvalds’ latest September 25 announcement. “It’s slightly larger than the historical average for this time of the release cycle, but it’s certainly not an outlier and looks pretty normal.”
He goes on to dispel the earlier indication that a further rc8 would be needed. A successful rc7 makes him think that “the final release will be right on schedule next weekend unless something unexpected happens.”
In fact, according to the most recent Linux 6.0 update, it’s “the first time we have a clean ‘make allmodconfig’ build with no warnings from clang”.
Torvalds concludes his message with his hopeful plan of one last week of testing. The likely elimination of that rc8 means Linux 6.0 appears to be “on track” next weekend, leading us to believe a release in early October is most likely.