Current kernel release status

The current development kernel is 2.5.21, which was announced by Linus on June 8. Changes include a big S/390 patch, a number of networking fixups, more kernel build changes (see last week's LWN Kernel Page), more driver model work, an NTFS update, some USB updates, and more. The long format changelog is available for those wanting the details.

Note that the IDE reworking process left a bug in 2.5.21 which can, apparently, send "format" commands to IDE drives. Said commands do not actually get run - nobody's drive has actually been formatted. But this is a good reminder that development kernels can always be a little hazardous, especially when fundamental layers (like IDE) are in a state of constant flux.

Linus's in-progress 2.5.22 patch (in BitKeeper) includes a big X86-64 update, a fix for a potential X86 security bug, an ACPI update, a new set of VFS and block device cleanups from Alexander Viro, a number of fixes for problems found by the Stanford Checker (see below), more IDE reworking, another set of kbuild fixes (not from kbuild-2.5), and more.

The latest prepatch from Dave Jones is 2.5.20-dj4; it brings in some fixes from the 2.4.19-pre series and the new CPU "frequency scaling" code ("Handle with care, still experimental").

The current 2.5 kernel status summary from Guillaume Boissiere was posted on June 12.

The current stable kernel remains 2.4.18. There have been no 2.4.19 prepatches or -ac patches released in the last week.

For followers of ancient kernels, David Weinehall has released 2.0.40-rc5, the fifth 2.0.40 release candidate.

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