Linux 5.5-rc1 is now available for public testing

Dec 9, 2019 01:34 GMT  ·  By

The two week-long merge window that opened with the release of the Linux 5.4 kernel series last month ended today with the launch of the first release candidate of Linux kernel 5.5, which was announced by Linus Torvalds himself.

That's right, Linus Torvalds has officially kicked off the development cycle of the next major Linux kernel series, Linux 5.5, which is now available for public testing from the kernel.org website. Linux kernel 5.5-rc1 is the first milestone in many to come and gives the community a first look at the new features and changes.

"We've had a normal merge window, and it's now early Sunday afternoon, and it's getting closed as has been the standard rule for a long while now," said Linus Torvalds. "Everything looks fairly regular - it's a tiny bit larger (in commit counts) than the few last merge windows have been, but not bigger enough to really raise any eyebrows. And there's nothing particularly odd in there either that I can think of: just a bit over half of the patch is drivers, with the next big area being Arch updates."

Linux kernel 5.5 to launch at the end of January 2020

We expect the Linux 5.5 kernel series to be officially released to the general public at the end of January or in early February 2020, which usually depends on how many Release Candidate (RC) milestones will be released. Linux kernel 5.5 will also be the first kernel series to be launch in 2020.

Until then, you can download Linux kernel 5.5-rc1 right now from kernel.org or via our free Linux software portal if you want to take it for a test drive and report bugs. However, please try to keep in mind that this is a pre-release version, so don't replace your stable kernel with it, nor use it in any production environment.