Linux Kernel: Critical Subsystem Fixes for RC3
Linus Torvalds merged four major fix sets targeting SMB server vulnerabilities, PA-RISC architecture issues, EFI boot problems, and Chrome platform stability. The updates address memory leaks, build failures, and critical NULL pointer dereferences.
Duration: PT2M6S
Episode overview
This episode is a short developer briefing from Linux Kernel.
It explains recent repository work in plain language.
- Show: Linux Kernel
- Published: 2026-05-07T10:03:09Z
- Audio duration: PT2M6S
Transcript excerpt
This excerpt keeps the crawler page concise. Listen to the episode or use the RSS feed for the full update.
Good morning, this is your Linux Kernel briefing for May 7th, 2026.
Today brought four significant merge commits from Linus Torvalds, all focused on critical fixes for the 7.1 release candidate 3.
The largest merge addresses SMB server vulnerabilities in the ksmbd implementation. Steve French's fixes tackle memory leaks in connection handling, inherited ACL validation issues, and durable handle cleanup races. The update also hardens file lifetime management during session teardowns and fixes memory region…
PA-RISC architecture received important fixes from Helge Deller, resolving build failures that were blocking both 32-bit and 64-bit kernel compilation. The update fixes IRQ leaks in the LASI driver and switches to dynamic root device handling to prevent upcoming warnings. A previous LED driver patch was also…
EFI subsystem fixes from Ard Biesheuvel address boot-critical issues on x86 platforms, particularly problems introduced by recent FPU API changes. The update restores proper IRQ state handling in EFI page fault scenarios and implements instruction cache synchronization for LoongArch systems. EFI pstore locking and…
Chrome platform received a targeted fix for a NULL dereference…