First release candidate of Linux kernel 6.9 looks ‘fairly normal,’ says Torvalds
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Improved workqueues mean the end of tasklets is looming at long last.
Linus Torvalds just announced the first RC of 6.9 on the Linux Kernel mailing list, saying it “looks to be fairly normal”, although it’s a recordbreaker in size.
He did call out a few changes in RC-1 of kernel 6.9, which should be ready in roughly mid-May, as especially noteworthy.
One is a very old feature that’s being shown the door: the original in-kernel NTFS driver. No, this doesn’t mean Linux won’t be able to use Windows disks any more – it’s the reverse: it will be better able to handle them.
Linux has no fewer than three FOSS drivers for NTFS. Of these, the newest and most capable is called ntfs3, submitted by Paragon Software back in 2020, finally accepted in mid-2021 and released in kernel version 5.15.
