[$] The first half of the 6.8 merge window

The 6.8 merge window has gotten off to a relatively slow start; reasons for
that include a significant scheduler performance regression that Linus
Torvalds stumbled
into and has spent time tracking down. Even so, 4,282 non-merge
changesets have found their way into the mainline repository for the 6.8
release as of this writing. These commits have brought a number of
significant changes and new features.