Linux Networking Diverts 50+ Fixes To Next Kernel, Still Bombarded With AI Fueled Churn

Ahead of the Linux 7.3-rc7 kernel due for release on Sunday, this week's batch of networking fixes were submitted and merged. The vast networking subsystem of wired and wireless drivers plus the various other networking features continues to see a lot of activity due to AI-driven bug reports and patches.

Last week some networking fixes began to be held off until Linux 7.4 due to getting late in the Linux 7.3 cycle and still seeing a lot of patch activity due to the AI/LLM-driven world. So the fixes not particularly pressing began to be queued in net-next rather than rushing them into Linux 7.3. The Linux networking maintainers already communicated before that they've been "completely overwhelmed" by all the AI activity. They've also been facing challenges due to AI slop patches.

In this week's networking pull request, it's noted they've now diverted over 50 patches to net-next for Linux 7.4 rather than squeezing it into Linux 7.3. And yet it's still another big pull request for what was submitted this week for 7.3-rc7. Jakub Kicinski commented in the pull request:

"Pretty sure you won't be impressed by the size of this PR but this is after we shaved off 50 fixes to net-next and asked sub-trees to significantly trim their PRs. Situation is what it is."

There are various Ethernet driver regression fixes, Mediatek MT76 WiFi driver fixes, and various other "LLM-ish" fixes to find with Linux 7.3-rc7 in tomorrow's release.