The final release should be out in July 2019

May 21, 2019 15:27 GMT  ·  By

With two weeks passed after the release of Linux kernel 5.1, Linus Torvalds has kicked off the development of the upcoming Linux 5.2 kernel series over the weekend.

The two-week merge window is now closed and the first RC (Release Candidate) milestone has been released for public testing and early adoption to discover pesky bugs and other annoyances that might block the final release of the Linux 5.2 kernel series later this summer. Things looks normal for now and everything is on track for a calm release.

"Things look fairly normal. Just about two thirds of the patch is drivers (all over), with the bulk of the rest being Arch updates, tooling, documentation and vfs/filesystem updates, of which there were more than usual (the unicode tables for ext4 case insensitivity do end up being a big part of the "bulk" side)," says Linus Torvalds in a mailing list announcement.

Linux 5.2-rc1 is now ready for public testing

Those interested in testing out the first Release Candidate of the Linux 5.2 kernel can download the source tarball right now from kernel.org or via our free software portal to compile it for their architectures and GNU/Linux distributions. However, please try to keep in mind that this is a pre-release version, so don't install it on a production machine.

The final release of the Linux 5.2 kernel series is expected to hit the streets in early or mid-July. If Linus Torvalds releases seven Release Candidates, Linux kernel 5.2 will be out on July 7th, but if there's need for an extra eighth RC, we should be able to download Linux kernel 5.2 on July 14th, 2019. Until then, go out and test, and don't forget to report bugs!