Linux 7.1-rc5 Released With Fixes Ramping Up From AI Coding Agents
In the road to releasing Linux 7.1 in June, out today is Linux 7.1-rc5 that continues coming on heavy with fixes.
Linux 7.1-rc5 brings more code fixes crafted by different AI coding agents like GitHub Copilot and Claude Code. The AI-driven fixes scatter the kernel spectrum from different graphics driver bugs to security issues being addressed in the C code. During the networking fixes merge this week, the merge request noted the craziness continues with no end in sight. There were also many sound subsystem fixes merged for the week too. Linus Torvalds marked this week that AI tools are great when not causing unnecessary pain and "pointless make-believe work".
Linux 7.1-rc5 also brings more HP and ASUS laptops seeing x86 platform driver support, Intel P-State and AMD P-State driver fixes for different issues, and other hardware driver fixes.
Linux 7.1 stable should be out by mid June and is bringing many new features and changes.
Update: Linus Torvalds is now out with his 7.1-rc5 announcement and he's not happy with the size of the kernel and the ongoing AI churn this late in the cycle:
Linux 7.1-rc5 brings more code fixes crafted by different AI coding agents like GitHub Copilot and Claude Code. The AI-driven fixes scatter the kernel spectrum from different graphics driver bugs to security issues being addressed in the C code. During the networking fixes merge this week, the merge request noted the craziness continues with no end in sight. There were also many sound subsystem fixes merged for the week too. Linus Torvalds marked this week that AI tools are great when not causing unnecessary pain and "pointless make-believe work".
Linux 7.1-rc5 also brings more HP and ASUS laptops seeing x86 platform driver support, Intel P-State and AMD P-State driver fixes for different issues, and other hardware driver fixes.
Linux 7.1 stable should be out by mid June and is bringing many new features and changes.
Update: Linus Torvalds is now out with his 7.1-rc5 announcement and he's not happy with the size of the kernel and the ongoing AI churn this late in the cycle:
"To the surprise of absolutely nobody by now, rc5 is pretty big. Quite a bit bigger than rc5's have traditionally been.
I'm not entirely happy about it - most of this is totally trivial stuff to random drivers, which obviously makes it all less scary, but at the same time I'm really not convinced the churn is worth it at rc5 time. These things are "fixes", sure, but at the same time a lot of them are simply so irrelevant that I think they'd be better off in a linux-next tree and get merged during the merge window.
So I think I'll start being a bit more hardnosed about this kind of unnecessary churn this late in the game. We are supposed to look for *regressions*. Non-critical fixes to long-standing issues are simply not appropriate for this late in the release cycle.
End result: this is too big, and this is the heads-up that I'll be pushing back on pointless pull requests with fixes that just aren't that important. And yes, several of these series were triggered by AI code review.
Because fixes or not - and trivial or not - these kinds of large rc weeks are *not* conducive to long-term stability. Trivial fixes may be trivial, and have a pretty low chance of causing problems, but "low chance" is still not "zero chance".
So people: start looking closer at your pull requests, and ask yourself: "Is this really a regression or serious enough that it shouldn't just go into the development pile?"."