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Master Linux developer, Linus Torvalds, announced on July 8 that the new Linux kernel 2.6.22 is now available. While this new kernel has many new features, its really more of a bug-fix release.
At the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit a few weeks ago, Jon Corbett, a Linux developer, asked a panel of Linux kernel developers, “Is the quality of the current kernel Linux 2.6.21 horrific?” Andrew Morton, leading Linux kernel programmer and coordinator, replied that some people felt that 2.6.21 contained “not ready for prime time” features and so “2.6.21 was perhaps a bit more buggy than it should be.”
So it is that the just released 2.6.22, as Linux kernel developer James Bottomley put it, is dealing with the “tension between new features and stabilizing those features.” In practice this means that 2.6.22 has made improvements in Linuxs new and somewhat troubled tickless timer system and many minor bug fixes.