Linux 5.15-rc2 Released With Many Fixes, Addressing Issues Raised By "-Werror"

Linux 5.15-rc2 is now available as the latest weekly release candidate for this next version of the Linux kernel. Linux 5.15 in turn should be out as stable around the start of November.

Being just one week past the end of the merge window, Linux 5.15-rc2 has seen many fixes land in the past week. Among the post-merge-window items catching my eye this week were bumping the GCC version requirement for the baseline compiler version supported, Linux 5.15 now being slightly less broken for the DEC Alpha "Jensen" system, and an important fix for the KSMBD in-kernel SMB3 file server.

Linus Torvalds noted in the 5.15-rc2 announcement that he's spent much of the week looking at the issues raised by the since reverted -Werror default for the Linux kernel back during the merge window. Various fixes -- including that DEC Jensen fix -- came from looking at problems raised by the promoting of compiler warnings to errors.

Linus added in the 5.15-rc2 announcement, "Is it done? No. But on the whole I'm feeling fairly good about this all, even if it has meant that I've been looking at some really odd and grotty code. Who knew I'd still worry about some odd EISA driver on alpha, after all these years? A slight change of pace ;)"

This Linux 5.15 performance regression does remain in 5.15-rc2 while awaiting further patches for testing to hopefully get it sorted out well in advance of the 5.15 stable release. I am in touch with the developers involved.

See my original Linux 5.15 feature overview for the lengthy list of new features, new hardware support, and other changes to find with this forthcoming kernel. More Linux 5.15 benchmarks forthcoming on Phoronix.