Linux 7.2 Released: Linus Torvalds Warns the ‘New Normal’ Demands Immediate Action

Linus Torvalds announced the official release of Linux kernel 7.2 in his August 16 weekly development update, opening with the observation that this is the "last week before release – bigger than expected." He attributed the growing source size to a "new normal" where many kernel contributors use AI coding tools, and warned that postponing the release could mean missing the window entirely.

Torvalds also noted several late rollbacks, especially in the DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) scheduler, describing them as "quite late" but necessary to address code stability issues; he emphasized that reverting unstable changes is the correct approach.

A major new feature is cache‑aware scheduling , which enables the kernel to schedule tasks on cores that already hold useful data in their caches, reducing extra memory accesses. This optimization targets multi‑core processors such as AMD EPYC 5 and Intel Xeon 6.

The release introduces support for a quirky device called the “Zenaim Leverless” game controller, a button‑rich peripheral originally designed for esports players and now usable on Linux.

Other notable changes include the deprecation of PCMCIA support, AppleTalk, and legacy ISA/PCMCIA adapters; work to run Linux efficiently on Apple M3 computers; routine driver fixes; a relatively large set of network subsystem updates in the final week; and adjustments to the perf performance‑analysis subsystem and architecture‑specific code.

Beyond these, the kernel contains numerous small bug fixes across drivers and core components. Torvalds reported that 40 pull requests are ready for the next development cycle, with the Linux 7.3 merge window opening on August 17.