If the release of the next version of the Linux kernel is delayed, blame Linus 🙂

The merge window for Linux 6.1 is currently open. This past Sunday, a kernel maintainer asked Linus Torvalds if he missed a merge request.

In this regard, Linus respondSays the merge request is still in its merge queue, but is currently executing the merge queue at a very slow rate due to memory issues with his computer, and he is also waiting for new ECC memory DIMMs to arrive.

According to information disclosed by Linus, his main work computer is a workstation equipped with an AMD RyzenThreadripper 3970X CPU, assembled by himself. It’s this PC that’s been a little unstable over the past few days, Linus said “Random memory corruption in user spacecausing allmodconfig builds to randomly fail with internal compiler errors, etc”.

This problem occurred during the merge window opening, and Linus initially thought it was a new bug in the kernel, because it happened occasionally. But after checking (using Memtest86+ to test the memory), Linus found that the problem was with the computer’s memory – after two and a half years of stable operation of the PC: a DIMM was broken.

Linus said the problem with his computer wouldn’t affect the merge window, as he could have done the merge on another machine, but it was more convenient for him to do the merge on the usual machine.

Linus assembled the new computer in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when ECC memory was scarce and expensive to get at a reasonable price. He also publicly criticized Intel’s marketing strategy for this – claiming that ECC memory is for servers and embedded devices, making it difficult for ordinary users to buy affordable ECC memory.

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