Multiplatform support 'pretty much done after 10+ years' says Torvalds as Linux 5.19-RC released
New and updated drivers account for around 60% of the release
Linus Torvalds has made the first release candidate (RC) for the upcoming Linux 5.19 kernel series available to the public.
In his 5.19-rc1 mailing list announcement, Torvalds noted that the development process for this version has been made difficult by many late pull requests, although he applauded the fact that most were properly signed.
"So the last two weeks were fairly normal, although I will gripe and moan a bit about how many late pull requests I got. The second week started out very calm, but that was sadly only because a lot of people left their final pull request pretty late," Torvalds said, with characteristic bluntness, before adding: "But what does make me pretty pleased is that pretty much all of the pull requests were signed tags. I still don't technically require signatures for pulls from kernel.org, but I've been (not very subtly) encouraging people to use them, and we're getting there. It's just good hygiene."
According to Torvalds, who created Linux in 1991 and remains an active maintainer, the release of Linux 5.19 marks a significant achievement for the project in terms of its multiplatform development.
Linux 5.19 is substantially bigger than previous versions. New and updated drivers account for around 60% of the release. Moreover, there are architectural upgrades, tooling and documentation enhancements, as well as some small core kernel updates (files systems, mm, networking, etc.).
There's also a significant amount of code that makes AMD GPUs work well with the kernel.
Torvalds also mentioned that the long-running ARM generic kernel development is now "pretty much done after 10+ years" of work.
"The StrongARM platforms remain with their separate kernels, and are expected to stay so, but compared to where things were a decade ago, this is a pretty big step," he added.
Among the new additions to Linux 5.19 is support for the MIPS-based LoongArch64 architecture, which was developed by the Chinese chip firm LoongSon. Additionally, NVMe support for Apple's silicon and additional code that lays the groundwork for Intel's standalone GPUs have also been included in this release.
Another notable addition is the beginning of support for the HPE GXP architecture.
The Release Candidate is available now for those wishing to test the upcoming Linux 5.19 kernel series on their hardware. However, developers warn this is a pre-release version, which should not be installed on a production machine.
If everything goes well with bug and regression fixes, the Linux 5.19 stable version should be available by the end of July 2022, depending on how many Release Candidates are published until then.