Linus Torvalds reveals why the latest Linux kernel was almost seriously delayed

Latest Linux kernel release is suitably named “Frozen Wasteland”

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

The recent icy storms that battered most of the United States leftLinuxkernel’s head-honchoLinus Torvaldswithout electricity, holding up the release of the latest release.

A resident of Portland, Torvalds even considered delaying the launch of the next development version due to the outage that left over a quarter million people without electricity in the Portland area.

“So I was actually without electricity for six days of the merge window, and was seriously considering just extending the merge window to get everything done,”wrote Torvaldsas he put out the latest release that he’s cheekily dubbed “frozen wasteland”.

Unusual release cycles

The development of the previous release cycle had to deal with the Christmas holiday season, and this one begins with thefalloutof the unusual weather. While Torvalds assumed both would delay the respective releases, none of the events could derail the kernel development bandwagon.

Torvalds credits the contributors for sending in good pull requests, while also acknowledging that the release is smaller than previous release, comparatively.

The highlight of the release is the “spring cleaning” that removed legacy code for systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) platforms and various drivers “that no longer make any sense,” shared Torvalds.

That said, one of the weirdest inclusions in the 5.12 release is support for the Nintendo 64, gaming console, which was released before the turn of the century. In any case, assuming there are no unforeseen delays, the final Linux 5.12 stable should be out in late April or early May.

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

Via:The Register

With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’sTechRadar Pro’sexpert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.

7 myths about email security everyone should stop believing

Best Usenet client of 2024

Arcane season 2 finally gave us the huge Caitlyn and Vi moment we’ve been waiting for – and its creators say ‘we couldn’t have done it in season one’