Linus Torvalds slams....himself over latest Linux build

Linus Torvalds
(Image credit: Linus Torvalds)

While putting out the latest update of the Linux 5.11 release over the weekend, Linux’s head honcho, Linus Torvalds, sarcastically referred to himself as “a crazy old man.”

In his previous dispatches, Torvalds had said he expected the first few Linux releases of the year to be small since most of the kernel developers would still be in vacation mode. 

However, that turned out not to be the case, leading to Torvalds referring to his fears in the earlier release as “incoherent ramblings of a crazy old man.”

Aging like fine wine

While Linux 5.11-rc2, released in the first week of the new year was relatively small due to the holidays, the current Linux 5.11-rc3 was much bigger than average: “While the week started out fairly slow, you guys certainly showed me, and the final rc3 ends up being on the bigger side as rc3s go,” wrote Torvalds.

Despite the size, Torvalds notes the changes in the release are fairly normal, admitting that his assumption that the development of Kernel 5.11 will require an extra release candidate to soak in the feared holiday impact “was just wrong.”

This isn’t the first time Torvalds has erred in his predictions. Late last year he expressed concern about the fairly large size of the release candidates in the Linux 5.10 branch expecting things to get “uncomfortable” around the holiday season, which it didn’t.

So for now, Linux 5.11 is looking on track for a final release in the middle of February. That is until Torvalds has one of his senior moments again.

Via The Register

Mayank Sharma

With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’s TechRadar Pro’s expert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.