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Linus Torvalds built an experimental Linux kernel patch series with Claude Code

Published: 18 sourcesTürkçe

Linus Torvalds built an experimental Linux kernel patch series with Claude Code

Linux creator Linus Torvalds published an experimental eight-patch series in his own repository on October 10. According to his note introducing it, the code, the test programs, the review and the first draft of the text were done with Claude Code “under my direction,” while the measurements ran on his own machine.

Torvalds says one test got 23 times faster, but calls it “a very artificial case”

The series targets a bottleneck that appears when many CPU cores read the same file at the same time. On October 13, Torvalds wrote on the kernel mailing list that he saw a 23x performance increase on his Threadripper machine. He immediately added that it was a very artificial test and that “any real life impact will be much much less.”

Two years ago, he called AI “90% marketing”

In October 2024, Torvalds said the AI industry was “90% marketing and 10% reality” and that he would basically ignore it for now. In May 2026, he said, “these days, I’m figuring out AI tools are good, too.” This October, he wrote kernel patches with AI.

The series isn’t merged yet, and Torvalds handed it to Meta’s Kiryl Shutsemau

Matthew Wilcox called the numbers “compelling” but objected to part of the design. Kiryl Shutsemau, reviewing the series, found a race that could return “data that never got written there.” Torvalds, about to go on vacation, asked Shutsemau to take the whole series over. The patches haven’t been merged into any kernel tree yet.

In June, he said AI still lacks “good taste”

In June 2026, Torvalds said hard fixes still fall to experienced developers who really understand the code, and that with AI, “right now, the good taste is mostly lacking.” On October 8, kernel maintainers agreed to stop requiring the tag that flags AI help.

Sources

  1. Linus Torvalds (linux.git, kernel.googlesource.com aynası), “mm: read from the page cache without folio references”, Empty cover commit of the noref branch: Claude Code disclosure, laptop numbers, known problems, (kernel.googlesource.com)
  2. Linus Torvalds (torvalds/linux, GitHub), 10-patch rcu-free-v3 branch (2 by Kiryl Shutsemau), (github.com)
  3. LKML (lkml.iu.edu arşivi), “Improve page refcount scalability”, Torvalds' announcement: 23x, decision to solve it with an LLM, 'very artificial case', (lkml.iu.edu)
  4. LKML (lkml.iu.edu arşivi), “Re: Improve page refcount scalability”, Matthew Wilcox: 'numbers are compelling', objects to the PG_rcu_free flag, (lkml.iu.edu)
  5. LKML (lkml.iu.edu arşivi), “Re: Improve page refcount scalability”, Kiryl Shutsemau finds the race in filemap_read_rcu_batch(), (lkml.iu.edu)
  6. LKML (lkml.iu.edu arşivi), “Re: Improve page refcount scalability”, Torvalds asks Kiryl to take the series over (vacation and merge window), (lkml.iu.edu)
  7. LKML (lkml.iu.edu arşivi), “Re: Improve page refcount scalability”, Kiryl: revised fix and 'Yes, can do.', (lkml.iu.edu)
  8. LWN.net, “Linus Torvalds’s first LLM-assisted patch series”, Brief: race found, 'further work will be needed', (lwn.net)
  9. LWN.net, “The 2026 Maintainers Summit”, Subscriber-only until Oct 22; Prague summit, (lwn.net)
  10. Linux kernel (GitHub raw), “AI Coding Assistants”, Current mainline text (still asks for Assisted-by) (raw.githubusercontent.com)
  11. Phoronix, “Linux Kernel Developers Plan To Remove “Assisted-By” Tag Requirement For AI/LLM Usage”, Dropping the tag requirement, (phoronix.com)
  12. The Register, “Linux kernel devs drop obligatory confession of AI tool usage”, Assisted-by dropped; Torvalds' blunt reply, (theregister.com)
  13. Phoronix, “Linus Torvalds Working On A Hefty Linux Kernel Improvement With Claude Code”, First report to spot the branch (Oct 11, 8:16 PM EDT), (phoronix.com)
  14. Hacker News, “Linus Torvalds’s first LLM-assisted patch series”, 115 points, 96 comments (Oct 15, 05:55 UTC), (news.ycombinator.com)
  15. TFiR (YouTube), “Linus Torvalds on the kernel, GenAI, EVs, programming languages and more…”, OSS Europe 2024 Vienna interview; '90% marketing and 10% reality' at 38:27; not CC, (youtube.com)
  16. Tom's Hardware, “Linus Torvalds reckons AI is ‘90% marketing and 10% reality’”, 2024 Vienna TFiR interview (Mark Tyson), (tomshardware.com)
  17. The Linux Foundation (YouTube), “Keynote: Linus Torvalds, Creator of Linux & Git with Dirk Hohndel, Founder, DH Consulting”, OSS North America 2026 (Minneapolis, May 20) keynote; AI segments, CC BY, (youtube.com)
  18. The Linux Foundation (YouTube), “Keynote: Linus Torvalds in Conversation with Dirk Hohndel”, OSS India 2026 (Mumbai, June 16); LLMs for toy projects, close-up, CC BY, (youtube.com)

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This story in Turkish: Linus Torvalds, Linux çekirdeği için Claude Code’la deneysel bir yama serisi hazırladı

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