14 DAY TRIAL // Linus Torvalds has announced that the second Release Candidate for the Linux kernel 3.18.x branch has been made available, and the release cycle seems to have a good start.
The upcoming Linux kernel 3.18 is followed with great interest by the community because it has the potential to become very widely adopted by various distros around the world. If we take a closer look at the kernel versions still maintained after many months, we will see that only the ones with even version numbers survive. The only exception is, of course, Linux kernel 3.17, which reached a stable status only a few weeks ago.
It's been a while since one of the kernels has been turned into an LTS version (long term support). The last one to get the special treatment was the 3.14 branch, so we might get to see some changes in this regard, especially if 3.18 will be an exciting one.
The merge window is now closed
The development cycle of the Linux kernel includes a merge window right at the beginning, when developers send new features that they want to integrate. Some will get added, others will get postponed, but once the window has been closed, the devs are only left to work on fixes and other small changes. Or at least this is what should happen in theory.
"Another week, another rc - and now the merge window is *definitely* closed. I had hoped that the rc1 release would mean that a few stragglers would quickly surface, and then the rest of the rc would be more normal. But no, I had straggling merge-window pull requests come in all week, and rc2 is bigger than I'd like."
"Oh well. It's not like I'm hugely surprised, but it does mean that I'm probably going to be unpleasant next week to anybody who tries to get me to pull things that I think looks like 'development' rather than 'fixes'. You've been warned. I effectively gave you a full three weeks of merge window, now it's time for bugfixes, and not random other noise. Ok?" writes Linus Torvalds.
Besides new features, the developers also send in driver and architecture updates, which usually make the bulk of the release. There is no way to anticipate when a stable version is ready, but it usually takes about 8 to 10 weeks if Linus is not traveling or if anything out of the ordinary doesn't happen, like a last-minute major fix.
In the meantime, if you know what you are doing and you want to help them test the new release, you can download Linux Kernel 3.18 RC2 from Softpedia and compile it yourself.