14 DAY TRIAL // Linus Torvalds has announced that Linux kernel 3.2 RC1 is now available for testing, and he actually took the time to explain why the size of the patches is not all that important.
Linux kernel 3.2 RC1 comes with a few new features and updates. One is the introduction in the mainline kernel, for the first time, of an ARM DRM driver (more precisely Samsung Exynos DRM driver).
Secondly, there are some improvements to the VMWare virtual graphics stack, and thirdly, this new version of Linux kernel also brings support for Nvidia Fermi chipsets (in the 0xd9 series), such as GeForce GT 520. There's even support for Intel RC6.
Linus Torvalds also addressed the problem of kernel patches, which are now well over 1000. “Do people really need the old-fashioned patches? The -rc1 patch is about 22MB gzip-9'd, and part of the reason is that all those renames cause big delete/create diffs”.
“We *could* use git rename patches, but then you'd have to apply them with "git apply" rather than the legacy "patch" executables. But as it is, the patch is almost a third of the size of the tar-ball, which makes me wonder if there's even any point to such a big patch?”, said Linus Torvalds.
Download Linux Kernel 3.2 RC1 right now from Softpedia.