This week saw the release Linux 5.8, which Linus Torvalds called “one of our biggest releases of all time,” reports TechRepublic:
The new version of the Linux kernel brings a number of updates to Linux 5.7 spanning security, core components, drivers, memory management, networking and improvements to the kernel’s design, amongst others. This includes updates for Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization platform, Intel Tiger Lake Thunderbolt support, improvements to Microsoft’s exFAT file system, and support for newer Intel and ARM chips.
Torvalds said the kernel had received over 15,000 merge requests and that around 20% of all the files in the kernel source repository had been modified. “That’s really a fairly big percentage, and while some of it is scripted, on the whole it’s really just the same pattern: 5.8 has simply seen a lot of development,” Torvalds said.
Translated into numbers, Linux 5.8 includes over 800,000 new lines and over 14,000 changed files. It also received one of the biggest number of merge requests during its merge window — over 14,000 non-merge commits and more than 15,000 including merges, according to Torvalds. “5.8 looks big. Really big,” he added.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot