What is new in Kernel 3.0?

Question

I understand this is somewhat less Ubuntu related, but it affects it.

So,what is so new about it that Linus decided to name it 3.0? I'm not trying to get information about the drivers that got into it or stuff that always gets improved. I want to know what really made it 3.0. I read somewhere that Linus wanted to get rid of the code that supports legacy hardware. Hm, not sure what that really meant because 3.0 is bigger (in MB), not smaller, than, say, 2.6.38.

What was the cause of naming it 3.0?

Answer 1

Nothing new at all. Citation below are from https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/5/29/204

I decided to just bite the bullet, and call the next version 3.0. It will get released close enough to the 20-year mark, which is excuse enough for me, although honestly, the real reason is just that I can no longe rcomfortably count as high as 40.

I especially like:

The whole renumbering was discussed at last years Kernel Summit, and there was a plan to take it up this year too. But let's face it - what's the point of being in charge if you can't pick the bike shed color without holding a referendum on it? So I'm just going all alpha-male, and just renumbering it. You'll like it.

And finally:

So what are the big changes?

NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. Sure, we have the usual two thirds driver changes, and a lot of random fixes, but the point is that 3.0 is just about renumbering, we are very much not doing a KDE-4 or a Gnome-3 here. No breakage, no special scary new features, nothing at all like that. We've been doing time-based releases for many years now, this is in no way about features. If you want an excuse for the renumbering, you really should look at the time-based one ("20 years") instead.

Answer 2

I've seen a few reasons, my favourite is that it's to celebrate 20 years of linux. Regardless of this, there is no notable change between the versions, Linus himself is adamant about that; this isn't a Gnome 3.0 or a KDE 4.

Answer 3

You'd better read what Linus said about it:

Honestly, the real reason is just that I can no longer comfortably count as high as 40.

You can find an article and more details on phoronix.

Answer 4

In general I find the summaries made at http://www.kernelnewbies.org/ to be very good and easy to read. You can find the latest changes at http://kernelnewbies.org/LinuxChanges but only after the kernel has been released.