Linux 6.16-rc3 lands with key driver and architecture fixes

If you’ve been waiting for progress on the next Linux kernel, Linux 6.16-rc3 is now available—and it’s back to normal size. Announced by Linus Torvalds, this third release candidate includes a mix of bug fixes and updates for both new and older features.

Torvalds noted that, unlike last week’s rc2, which was unusually small. However, this week’s rc3 looks “entirely normal” for this stage of development.

As reported by Phoronix, wireless networking and GPU driver changes are related to this release. Notable updates include “amdgpu” and “amdkfd” fixes for job handling, engine resets, display glitches, and power features. Qualcomm Adreno GPU drivers also saw better fault handling and display sync improvements.

The open-source Nouveau (NVIDIA) driver received several patches for memory safety, addressing overflows, buffer sizes, and use-after-free issues. Intel’s i915 driver was updated to fix early wedge conditions and memory initialization problems.

On the architecture side, there are improvements to ARM64 KVM for stability, as well as updates to RISC-V KVM and Intel’s Trust Domain Extensions (TDX) for virtualization security.

Other subsystems seeing changes include ath12k and iwlwifi (Wi-Fi), ALSA (audio), AMD power management, and file systems like OverlayFS, EROFS, XFS, and NFS.

Linux 6.16 is expected to reach stable release by the end of July. As always, the newest kernel helps Linux support more hardware, so it’s worth checking out if you’ve had compatibility issues. Torvalds has urged users to keep testing and reporting bugs during the rc phase.