So it looks like 4.15 is finally calming down, with rc4 being about average size-wise for this time in the release process.
Of course, we not only have the holiday season coming up, we *also* have some x86 entry and page table handling fixes pending. But that's not for today, and not for rc4. Let's enjoy the short normal phase of 4.15 today.
The most noticeable thing to most normal users in rc4 is that we should finally have cleaned up and fixed the suspend/resume handling. That got first broken for some (unusual) kernel configurations due to excessive debugging at a very inopportune time in early resume, and when _that_ got fixed, we broke the 32-bit case. Not many developers run 32-bit builds in real life any more, so that took a bit to even notice.
Anyway, the good news is that as a result of that silly chaos, the code is now a lot cleaner and more maintainable: none of the bugs here were _complex_ per se, they were just a result of some really nasty code and the fragility of resume bringup. It should all be good now.
Of course, that thing that may be noticeable to users is just a tiny small detail, and not actually all that noticeable in the diffs or the commit logs (below). As usual, the actual *bulk* of the changes tend to be drivers, although this time there's also a noticeable removal of the cross-locking debug code that caused problems (not for normal users, but for developers). So that adds to the diffstat, but doesn't affect most people. There's still discussion about how to possibly resurrect that code later.
Outside of the drivers and locking changes, there's the usual noise elsewhere: some filesystem fixes, some networking, some tooling. The appended shortlog gives a taste of it all. It's small enough that you can scroll down and skim it for a sense of whats been going on.
I would like to say that I hope things will continue to calm down, but I already know I have more stuff pending. That, together with the holidays, makes me strongly suspect that this will be one of those "we'll do an rc8" releases, but we'll see. I won't actually make that decision until we get to that point, and there's little point in worrying about it yet.
Go out and test. I think we're in pretty good shape right now.
