Linux 7.0-rc1

From: Linus Torvalds

Date: Sun Feb 22 2026 - 17:40:36 EST


You all know the drill by now: two weeks have passed, and the kernel
merge window is closed.

We have a new major number purely because I'm easily confused and not
good with big numbers.

We haven't done releases based on features (or on "stable vs
unstable") for a long long time now. So that new major number does
*not* mean that we have some big new exciting feature, or that we're
somehow leaving old interfaces behind. It's the usual "solid
progress" marker, nothing more.

With our normal release schedule of 5-6 releases per year and my
antipathy to big version numbers, you should basically expect us to
bump the major number roughly every 3.5 years.

And yeah, I don't have a solid plan for when the major number itself
gets big. But doing the math - by that time, I expect that we'll have
somebody more competent in charge who isn't afraid of numbers past the
teens. So I'm not going to worry about it.

Anyway - despit eany lingering ".0 release" worries that people might
have due to experiences with other projects, this was one of those
fairly smooth merge window for me. I define those as the merge windows
where I don't have to bisect boot failures on any of my machines.
Admittedly this time around that was because I caught one failure case
early before I *actually* booted into it, but hey, that still
technically counts as "smooth" to me.

But your milage may vary. Which is why you should now all drop
everything, run to your computers, and test-build and test-boot a
shiny new kernel. The fact that it all works for *me* is good, but
let's make sure it works for others too, ok?

Just kidding. A leisurely stroll after you've finished chewing is fine.

And as always with rc1 releases, there's way too many changes to list
individually. So below you'll find just my mergelog that gives a very
rough idea of what I pulled and from whom.

The *really* high-level view is the usual: two thirds drivers, with
the final third being the usual random collection of architecture
updates, filesystems, tooling and random core kernel code.

For a more detailed view, please refer to the git tree (or the good
people who track and document new kernel features online, allowing me
to be my lazy self).

Linus

---

Al Viro (1):
vfs 'struct filename' updates

Alex Williamson (1):
VFIO updates

Alexandre Belloni (2):
i3c updates
RTC updates

Alexei Starovoitov (2):
bpf updates
bpf fixes

Amir Goldstein (1):
overlayfs update

Andreas Gruenbacher (1):
gfs2 updates

Andreas Hindborg (1):
configfs updates

Andreas Larsson (1):
sparc updates

Andrew Morton (5):
MM updates
non-MM updates
MM fixes
more MM updates
more non-MM updates

Andy Shevchenko (1):
auxdisplay updates

Anna Schumaker (1):
NFS client updates

Ard Biesheuvel (2):
EFI updates
EFI fixes

Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo (1):
perf tools updates

Arnd Bergmann (5):
asm-generic header updates
SoC defconfig updates
SoC driver updates
arm platform SoC code updates
SoC devicetree updates

Bartosz Golaszewski (3):
power sequencing updates
gpio updates
gpio fixes

Bjorn Andersson (2):
remoteproc updates
rpmsg updates

Bjorn Helgaas (2):
PCI updates
pci fixes

Boqun Feng (1):
RCU updates

Borislav Petkov (8):
EDAC updates
x86 alternatives update
x86 bug documentation update
x86 resource control updates
x86 cleanups
x86 microcode loader update
x86 paravirt updates
x86 SEV updates

Carlos Maiolino (1):
xfs updates

Casey Schaufler (1):
smack updates

Christian Brauner (14):
vfs rust updates
vfs initrd removal
vfs timestamp updates
vfs lease updates
vfs error reporting updates
vfs updates for btrfs
minix update
vfs nullfs update
vfs atomic_open updates
vfs mount updates
vfs iomap updates
misc vfs updates
pidfs updates
more misc vfs updates

Chuck Lever (1):
nfsd updates

Damien Le Moal (1):
ATA updates

Dan Williams (1):
TSM updates

Danilo Krummrich (1):
driver core updates

Dave Airlie (2):
drm updates
drm fixes

Dave Hansen (2):
x86 entry code updates
misc x86 updates

Dave Jiang (1):
CXL updates

Dave Kleikamp (1):
jfs updates

David Howells (1):
keys update

David Sterba (2):
btrfs updates
btrfs fixes

David Teigland (1):
dlm updates

Dmitry Torokhov (1):
input updates

Dominique Martinet (1):
9p updates

Eric Biggers (4):
crypto library updates
fsverity updates
crypto library fix
fsverity fixes

Frederic Weisbecker (1):
kthread updates

Gao Xiang (1):
erofs updates

Geert Uytterhoeven (1):
m68k updates

Greg KH (5):
char/misc/IIO driver updates
staging driver updates
tty / serial driver updates
USB / Thunderbolt updates
SPDX updates

Greg Ungerer (1):
m68knommu updates

Guenter Roeck (1):
hwmon updates

Heiko Carstens (2):
s390 updates
s390 fixes

Helge Deller (3):
parisc updates
fbdev updates
more fbdev updates

Herbert Xu (1):
crypto update

Huacai Chen (1):
LoongArch updates

Ilpo Järvinen (1):
x86 platform driver updates

Ilya Dryomov (1):
ceph updates

Ingo Molnar (6):
performance event updates
locking updates
scheduler updates
x86/boot updates
x86 APIC update
x86 cpu updates

Ingo MolnarL
(1):
x86 platform update

Ira Weiny (1):
libnvdimm updates

Jaegeuk Kim (1):
f2fs updates

Jakub Kicinski (1):
networking fixes

James Bottomley (1):
SCSI updates

Jan Kara (2):
fsnotify updates
quota and isofs updates

Jarkko Sakkinen (1):
tpm updates

Jason Gunthorpe (1):
rdma updates

Jassi Brar (1):
mailbox updates

Jean Delvare (1):
dmi update

Jens Axboe (8):
io_uring updates
io_uring bpf filters
block updates
bounce buffer dio for stable pages
io_uring large rx buffer support
more io_uring updates
more block updates
io_uring fixes

Jiri Kosina (1):
HID updates

Joel Granados (1):
sysctl updates

Joerg Roedel (1):
iommu updates

Johannes Berg (1):
UML updates

John Johansen (1):
AppArmor updates

Jon Mason (1):
NTB (PCIe non-transparent bridge) updates

Jonathan Corbet (2):
documentation updates
documentation fixes

Juergen Gross (2):
xen updates
xen fix

Julia Lawall (1):
coccinelle updates

Kees Cook (6):
execve update
pstore updates
hardening updates
kmalloc_obj updates
kmalloc_obj prep
kmalloc_obj conversion

Konstantin Komarov (1):
ntfs3 updates

Lee Jones (3):
MFD updates
backlight updates
LED updates

Len Brown (2):
turbostat updates
turbostat fix

Linus Walleij (1):
pin control updates

Magnus Lindholm (1):
alpha update

Marek Szyprowski (1):
dma-mapping update

Mark Brown (5):
regmap updates
regulator updates
spi updates
regulator fixes
spi fixes

Masami Hiramatsu (2):
bootconfig updates
kprobes updates

Mauro Carvalho Chehab (1):
media updates

Max Filippov (1):
Xtensa update

Michael Tsirkin (1):
virtio updates

Mickaël Salaün (1):
landlock updates

Miguel Ojeda (2):
rust updates
rust fixes

Mike Marshall (1):
orangefs updates

Mike Rapoport (2):
memblock updates
memblock fix

Mikulas Patocka (1):
device mapper updates

Mimi Zohar (1):
integrity updates

Miquel Raynal (1):
MTD updates

Namjae Jeon (1):
exfat updates

Nathan Chancellor (2):
Kbuild/Kconfig updates
Kbuild fixes

Paolo Abeni (1):
networking updates

Paolo Bonzini (1):
KVM updates

Paul Moore (3):
audit updates
lsm updates
selinux updates

Paul Walmsley (1):
RISC-V updates

Petr Mladek (1):
printk updates

Rafael J (1):
more ACPI support updates

Rafael Wysocki (5):
ACPI updates
power management updates
thermal control updates
more power management updates
thermal control fix

Rob Herring (1):
devicetree updates

Russell King (1):
ARM updates

Sami Tolvanen (1):
module updates

Sebastian Reichel (1):
power supply and reset updates

Serge Hallyn (1):
capabilities updates

Shuah Khan (2):
kunit updates
kselftest updates

Stafford Horne (1):
OpenRISC updates

Stephen Boyd (1):
clk updates

Steve French (4):
smb client updates
smb server and smbdirect updates
smb client fixes
smb server fixes

Steven Rostedt (5):
runtime verifier updates
RTLA updates
tracing updates
tracing fixes
runtime verifier fix

Takashi Iwai (2):
sound updates
sound fixes

Takashi Sakamoto (1):
firewire updates

Ted Ts'o (1):
ext4 updates

Tejun Heo (4):
workqueue updates
cgroup updates
sched_ext updates
sched_ext fixes

Thomas Bogendoerfer (1):
MIPS updates

Thomas Gleixner (8):
irq cleanups
irq core updates
irq chip driver updates
MSI updates
clocksource updates
timer core updates
VDSO updates
x86 irq updates

Thomas Weißschuh (1):
nolibc updates

Tyler Hicks (1):
ecryptfs updates

Tzung-Bi Shih (1):
chrome platform updates

Uwe Kleine-König (1):
pwm updates

Viacheslav Dubeyko (2):
nilfs2 updates
hfs/hfsplus updates

Vinod Koul (3):
soundwire updates
phy updates
dmaengine updates

Vlastimil Babka (2):
slab updates
more slab updates

Wei Liu (1):
Hyper-V updates

Will Deacon (2):
arm64 updates
arm64 fixes

Wim Van Sebroeck (1):
watchdog updates

Wolfram Sang (2):
i2c updates
more i2c updates

Yury Norov (1):
bitmap updates