The topic Linux 7.1 is here, and it kills i486 support, fixes Steam Deck audio, and overhauls… is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
Well, it’s that time once again. After Linux 7.1 hit the release candidate branches for testing, Linus Torvalds noted that, again, more bug fixes were coming in than usual due to AI agents finding problems. It got to the point where he was getting annoyed with them clogging the secure channels. Fortunately, despite that, everything else went smoothly, and Linux 7.1 has now been released for public download.
Linus Torvalds sent out a message announcing the release of Linux 7.1 on early Sunday. He usually ships it in the afternoon, but due to his travel arrangements, he was in a completely different time zone when the release happened. He’ll be in yet another time zone tomorrow, meaning the timing for the merge window re-opening for Linux 7.2 will also be a little skewiff, but it should still happen.
Anyway, possible slight hiccups in the merge window aside, the news today is 7.1. Below is the shortlog for the last week – nothing particularly interesting or scary stands out, which is as it should be. It’s mostly various smaller driver updates (gpu, networking, sound, misc) with some networking and trace tooling fixes. And random minor changes elsewhere.
Please do keep testing despite the release, and apologies in advance if my merge window latency is going to be a bit random the next few days. I briefly considered just extending the release for a week, but decided it wasn’t really worth it. I may come to regret that decision.
If you’re not fond of digging through the patch notes to see what changed and what’s new, we’ve covered the three biggest changes as they happened in the past:
If you’re feeling brave, head over to the Git page and grab 7.1 right now. Otherwise, hang tight for your fave distro to implement it.