After the two-week window merger ended, the first candidate version of Linux Kernel 5.15 was released today. The new branch has made many changes to the kernel, including Paragon NTFS3 as the new NTFS file system driver, KSMBD as the SMB3 file server in the kernel, choosing to enter the L1d cache refresh during context switching, and so on.
Linux Kernel 5.15 also continues to optimize Apple M1, introducing many improvements for AMD, as well as initial support for Intel DG2/Alchemist and XeHP independent graphics, as well as support for much other new hardware.
Linus Torvalds wrote about Linux 5.15-rc1 in the announcement:
So 5.15 is not a particularly large version, at least in terms of the number of submissions. There are only more than 10,000 non-merged commits, which is actually our smallest RC1 in the 5.x series. We usually hover in the range of 120,000-140,000 submissions. In other words, counting submissions is not necessarily the best measure, and this may be especially true this time.
We have some new subsystems, of which NTFSv3 and ksmbd are the most worthy of attention. Therefore, when you look at statistics based on the number of rows changed, 5.15-rc1 ultimately looks more moderate. It still doesn’t look like a particularly large merge window, but it’s not the smallest window either.
