The <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/1099809/">7.3-rc7</a> kernel prepatch is out for
testing. According to Linus: "<q>As always, I would have preferred to see a smaller
rc, but it's not like anything in here looks like a reason to delay
the final release. So that's still set for next weekend unless
something new comes up.</q>"
<p>

One notable change that slipped into the mainline this week is the <a
href="https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=3e78d7b06323">deprecation</a>
of the ext4 <tt>data=journal</tt> mode; it will be removed entirely at the
beginning of 2028.