Linux creator Linus Torvalds informed the community that the new kernel's first RC was generally available.

Before anyone gets too excited, Torvalds had this to say: “We haven't done releases based on features (or on 'stable vs unstable') for a long long time now. So that new major number does *not* mean that we have some big new exciting feature, or that we're somehow leaving old interfaces behind. It's the usual 'solid progress' marker, nothing more."

Yep, that's right, this major new version number doesn't mean there are major changes in the kernel. That doesn't mean, however, that there's nothing of note.

In one surprise move, there are a lot of fixes for older AMD Radeon GPUs, such as a fix for a black screen that caused problems for AMDGPU DC display code when using a Radeon HD 7790. There's even a fix for AMDGPUs found in older MacBooks with switchable graphics.

The first 7.x kernel RC also includes several Rust updates, as well as updates for things like Virtual File System (VFS) struct filename, VFIO, I3C, RTC, overlays, Global File System 2 (GFS2), NFS client, PCI, EDAC, and much more. Btrfs also received support for the remap-tree feature.

You can download the Linux kernel 7.x RC candidate from the Linux Kernel Archives, and the full General Availability (GA) release should come out in April 2026.