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