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From Linus Torvalds
Date Sun, 22 Feb 2026 14:40:09 -0800
Subject Linux 7.0-rc1
You all know the drill by now: two weeks have passed, and the kernel
merge window is closed.
We have a new major number purely because I'm easily confused and not
good with big numbers.
We haven't done releases based on features (or on "stable vs
unstable") for a long long time now. So that new major number does
*not* mean that we have some big new exciting feature, or that we're
somehow leaving old interfaces behind. It's the usual "solid
progress" marker, nothing more.
With our normal release schedule of 5-6 releases per year and my
antipathy to big version numbers, you should basically expect us to
bump the major number roughly every 3.5 years.
And yeah, I don't have a solid plan for when the major number itself
gets big. But doing the math - by that time, I expect that we'll have
somebody more competent in charge who isn't afraid of numbers past the
teens. So I'm not going to worry about it.
Anyway - despit eany lingering ".0 release" worries that people might
have due to experiences with other projects, this was one of those
fairly smooth merge window for me. I define those as the merge windows
where I don't have to bisect boot failures on any of my machines.
Admittedly this time around that was because I caught one failure case
early before I *actually* booted into it, but hey, that still
technically counts as "smooth" to me.
But your milage may vary. Which is why you should now all drop
everything, run to your computers, and test-build and test-boot a
shiny new kernel. The fact that it all works for *me* is good, but
let's make sure it works for others too, ok?
Just kidding. A leisurely stroll after you've finished chewing is fine.
...
