Torvalds Releases Release Candidate Linux 4.2-rc1 Kernel

Linus Torvalds released version 4.2-rc1 Sunday evening. That doesn’t make 4.2 the most modified kernel ever, but it does come close to the 3.10 release. Most of the new lines of code are due to the new amdgpu graphics driver.

This is what Torvalds writes in his two-weekly kernel mailing. He says that with over a million lines of code added and about a quarter of a million lines removed, he beats the release candidate 3.11-rc1. In addition, the addition of the Luster file system was the main reason for the large number of added lines. The number of lines added to the 3.10 kernel was ultimately increased due to the number of changes that were made between the rc and final release.

The new amdgpu kernel driver, in which the headers alone are responsible for 41 percent of the entire patch and another 8 percent for the driver itself, should ensure that the latest and future Radeon GPUs are supported. There’s also support for Intel Broxton Atom-socs and expanded support for various ARM CPUs, F2FS file system with per-file encryption, and other hardware. Also ext4 has been cleaned up and taken care of with various fixes.

Other notable changes include improvements to the audio system, including support for Intel Skylake audio. The ALSA hda/hdmi code now has support for Nvidia’s Tegra 3, Tegra 4 and Tegra X1 socs. Support for various controllers, such as the Logitech M560 and Sony Motion Controller from the PlayStation and several other controllers. The new rc can be downloaded from the well-known places.