Linux 7.2‑rc6 Released: Linus Calls It a Massive Change

Linux 7.2‑rc6 was released on August 3 for developers and advanced users, allowing testing of the upcoming kernel before the final version.

Fix for AMD Zen 5 CPUs Misidentified as Zen 6

A recent patch added Zen 6 IDs (0xd0‑0xef) to Family 1Ah, but IDs 0xd0‑0xd7 actually belong to Zen 5. The new patch restricts 0xd0‑0xd7 to Zen 5, keeps 0xc0‑0xcf and 0xd8‑0xef for the corrected range, and reserves 0x50‑0x5f and 0x80‑0xaf for upcoming Zen 6 processors.

This patch was merged into the x86 fixes shortly before the roughly 12‑hour release window. Another x86 fix adds a volatile qualifier and clobbers to the memcmp() implementation to prevent instruction reordering, fixing a Xen VM boot issue reported the previous month.

Other Important Updates

PCIe devices no longer unintentionally drop to 2.5 GT/s.

Performance improvements for AMD EPYC Sorano.

Support added for Wacom W9000 pen tablet.

Deprecated old PROFIBUS driver ported from SCO Unix.

Bug fixes and minor tweaks to the NTFS3 driver.

Reduced boot overhead for RISC‑V.

New USB4STREAM feature for fast data transfer over USB4.

Preparations for NVIDIA Blackwell‑Next devices.

Network improvements and Wi‑Fi 8 (UHR) support.

Apple M3 systems can now boot Linux 7.2.

AppleTalk protocol support removed.

Multiple bug fixes and overall improvements.

Scale of the Release

Linus: “This RC is massive. Even by the ‘new normal’ standards it is a very large RC, and by commit count it is probably the biggest RC6 we have seen in years.”

Statistics: drivers ~60 % of changes, networking ~20 %, rest ~20 % (arch, tools, filesystems). Drivers include GPU, network, sound, SPI, ATA, etc.

Many networking changes stem from backlog due to meeting schedule; no obvious show‑stoppers, but the size is unsettling.

Nothing clearly “bad” that would delay the release, but calm is hoped for over the next two weeks.

Linux 7.2 will be the third 7.x release after 7.1, bringing many enhancements and new features for developers and users. Rolling‑release distributions such as Arch Linux are expected to update first, followed by other distributions according to their schedules.

Because this is an experimental pre‑release, it is not recommended for production use; users should back up important data before testing.