This is supposed to be the final development version before the final release

Nov 26, 2012 07:40 GMT  ·  By

Linus Torvalds announced the immediate availability for download of the seventh and possibly the last release candidate for the Linux 3.7 kernel series.

This new release candidate for the Linux kernel 3.7.x is nothing too fancy, but it is bigger than the previous version, containing significant block layer that will need further testing.

“A week ago, I had even considered skipping -rc7 entirely as things had been so calm, but decided that there was little reason to hurry the release,” said Torvalds in the official announcement.

“For some reason the block layer came up on the radar, and there are md, scsi and generic block layer changes in there. So we definitely want another week of testing, and hopefully things really are solid,” ended Linus Torvalds.

Highlights of Linux kernel 3.7 RC7:

• NULL ptr derference in ata_acpi_dev_handle has been fixed; • Way access filter on Piledriver CPUs has been disabled; • A system hang issue in cmd timeout error case has been fixed; • Support for AMD family 16h processors has been added; • Incorrect NR_FREE_PAGES accounting, which appears as a memory leak, has been fixed; • The ordering of CFI directives and recent ASM_CLAC additions has been fixed; • The correct fence implementation for nv50, in the nouveau driver, has been fixed; • A processor-specific memcpy() build error has been repaired; • Incorrect NULL check in parse_ofoldpart_partitions() has been fixed; • A missing unlock on error in hdmi_dump_regs() has been fixed; • PM callbacks should be conditionally compiled on CONFIG_PM_SLEEP; • "set ring address before enabling receiver" function has been reverted; • Runtime PM support has been limited only to known Intel chips.

A complete list of changes and fixes can be found in the official mailing list.

Download Linux kernel 3.7 RC7 right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a development release and it is intended for testing purposes only.