Linux 7.2 is officially here. Linus Torvalds announced the new kernel today following a final week that apparently delivered more activity than he would have preferred… likely thanks to AI. Still, rather than delay the release, Torvalds decided the remaining work fit what has increasingly become the normal rhythm of Linux kernel development.
“Well, this last week of the release was – once again – bigger than I would have wished for, but hey, with the whole ‘new normal’ thing, if I delayed releases for that reason we’d probably never have a release at all,” Torvalds said.
One of the more interesting parts of the final Linux 7.2 release is actually what was taken out. Several late DRM scheduler changes were reverted after problems surfaced, including work involving scheduler run queues and a change that would have made the fair scheduling policy the default.
Torvalds did not try to dress up those reversions as anything particularly exciting. Instead, he described them as the appropriate response when code turns out not to be ready.
“There are a number of fairly late reverts – the drm scheduling reverts stand out, but there’s a few other ones in here too,” he explained. “It may not be pretty, but it’s the correct way to deal with ‘oh, that code wasn’t ready and caused problems’. People will be trying that again later.”
That is arguably a healthy approach for a kernel used across everything from tiny embedded devices to enormous servers. Shipping a feature just because it made it this far through the development cycle would make little sense if developers have discovered regressions. Linux 7.2 may lose some planned changes as a result, but stability should take priority.
The final batch of fixes stretches across a large portion of the kernel. Drivers account for much of the activity, while networking continued to receive attention during the last week. There are also architecture, performance, storage, audio, graphics, and security-related fixes scattered throughout the release.
AMD graphics received quite a bit of attention. The final changes include multiple AMDGPU fixes involving video decoding, buffer validation, power management, display handling, and other areas. Intel Xe graphics received several fixes as well.
Networking changes include fixes affecting IPv4, SCTP, IPVS, netfilter, VXLAN, veth, TIPC, Realtek PHY hardware, and several Ethernet drivers. The list also includes fixes for memory safety problems such as use-after-free and out-of-bounds access issues.
Elsewhere, Linux 7.2 includes fixes touching RISC-V, ARM64, OpenRISC, x86, MMC, SCSI, SPI, ALSA, GPIO, crypto, tracing, Ceph, EROFS, and other kernel subsystems. As usual, most users will never directly notice many of these individual changes, and that is probably a good thing. Kernel fixes are often most successful when the operating system simply keeps working.
Linux 7.2 should begin appearing in rolling-release Linux distributions relatively quickly, while distributions with more conservative kernel policies will naturally take longer. There is generally no reason for ordinary users to rush out and manually install a new kernel outside their distribution’s normal update process.
Development does not stop with Linux 7.2, of course. Torvalds says the Linux 7.3 merge window opens tomorrow, and developers apparently aren’t wasting any time getting ready.
“I already have 40 pending pull requests,” Torvalds said. “I appreciate all the timely people. You know who you are.”
So Linux 7.2 arrives without a dramatic last-minute delay, but not without some cleanup. The late DRM reversions may be the most notable part of the final release announcement, particularly because they demonstrate that getting code into the kernel is not necessarily the end of the discussion. Sometimes the best fix really is to back something out and try again later.
Support independent tech journalism
NERDS.xyz is independently owned and operated. If you enjoy my coverage of Linux, AI, hardware, cybersecurity, and tech culture, consider supporting the site on Ko-fi.
Support NERDS.xyz