The same could be said for stable version releases, but with a very small difference: if there is something to fix, an eighth Release Candidate is released to fix it and the date is pushed back. There have even been times with a novena, but the RC releases come out every Sunday as a general rule, removing one for the fusion window. And what arrived on Sunday afternoon was Linux 6.9-rc2.
And Linus Torvalds is always at the forefront. «Neither the snow, nor the rain, nor the heat, nor the darkness of the night stop RC launches. Holy Week neither", begin an article in which not there is much to highlight. Most of the work done in Linux 6.9-rc2 has been left over by the fixes, especially the drivers. A very normal CR and, although the penguin's father doesn't say it, it may have to do with the dates we are on.
Linux 6.9 will arrive in mid-May
«So here we are. Another week has passed and the rc2 is now available. There is nothing notable, and the fixes are quite spread out (most are drivers, because it is the majority of the code).
Aside from the driver fixes, we have some more self-diagnostic work (mostly networking and bpf but also some random fixes), some architecture fixes (mostly x86), some filesystem work (xfs and btrfs) and random noise elsewhere (mm, kernel core, networking, Kbuild…).”
Linux 6.9 will arrive in mid-may, on the 12th if the development cycle is normal and on the 19th if an eighth CR is required. If in the end a novena has to be launched that I personally don't remember having ever seen, although Torvalds says there have been ones, it will also arrive in May, but in this case on the 26th.
Ubuntu users who prefer to stay in the kernel of the operating system, something we recommend here, should care little about one date or another. Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat will arrive on the 25th, and it will do so with Linux 6.8. The Canonical system will remain on that kernel, updated by the same company, at least until October, when Ubuntu 24.10 will arrive with a kernel that will be between 6.10 and 6.11. Users who want to install the kernel that Torvalds launches and maintains his team can do so using tools like Mainline Kernels.