Linux 3.3-rc3 Has No Big Surprises

The Linux 3.3 kernel is now up to its third RC release and is fairly in shape.

"Another week, another -rc. No big surprises, which is just how I like it," is how Linus begins the 3.3-rc3 announcement. About a third of the work in the past week (since 3.3-rc2, a.k.a. the "mind-fart" release) have been patches for ARM work while the rest is all really small changes. With it getting into the second-half of the Linux 3.3 development cycle, development is calming down and there isn't much to get excited over being outside the merge window.

Among the work that was merged into the Linux 3.3 kernel were lots of graphics driver changes, DMA-BUF, BQL for Bufferbloat fighting, EXT4 improvements, Btrfs enhancements, ACPI / power management improvements (including the notorious ASPM fix), and much more.

The Linux 3.3 final kernel release should be here around March.