[ANNOUNCE] Linux v6.9-rc6-epic1

Hello linux-ia64!

We are announcing the first release of the linux-ia64 patchset v6.9-rc6-epi=
c.

We have been maintaining an out-of-tree patch with Itanium support for
the Linux kernel since support was removed in November 2023 and
effective since Linux 6.7. After some time of successfully rebasing to
upstream master periodically, we have decided to adopt a model similar
to PREEMPT_RT and make formal releases for the patch, with the version
suffix -epic.

This is the first release of this format. At the same time, the
repository was also re-organized to mimic linux-rt: the master branch
is now master-epic, and future branches will be named linux-a.b.y-epic
(e.g. linux-6.9.y-epic).

Known issues:

- Kernel boot hangs when CONFIG_NR_CPUS is higher than 64.

Fixes (compared to 6.6-stable):

- Kernel now boots on rx6600 machines again after fixing a bug in the
mm subsystem.

The release may be obtained from GitHub:

https://github.com/linux-ia64/linux-ia64/tree/linux-6.9.y-epic
https://github.com/linux-ia64/linux-ia64/releases/download/v6.9-rc6-epic1/p=
atch-6.9-epic1.patch.gz

Tom=C3=A1=C5=A1 Glozar