Linux Kernel 7.3-rc2 released with unusually high commit volume

Linus Torvalds has released the second release candidate (rc2) for Linux Kernel 7.3, featuring an unusually high volume of updates for this stage of the development cycle. The release includes approximately 1,984 commits from 694 contributors, covering nine subsystem trees.

Key technical focuses of this release include hardening the BPF verifier with 86 commits, resolving security flaws in USB and staging drivers, and patching regressions resulting from the recent single-runqueue conversion in the CFS scheduler. Tooling, including sched_ext and selftests, accounts for roughly 20% of the changes.

Torvalds noted that an rc2 is typically a quiet period following the merge window, but this version arrived with significant activity from filesystem, graphics, networking, and driver trees. Addressing the unexpected heaviness of the patch set, Torvalds jokingly remarked, “It might be just random... But we’ll obviously all blame it on AI, because whether that’s really the cause or not, it’s an easy thing to blame.”