A new development version of the Linux kernel is now ready for testing

Sep 1, 2014 06:29 GMT  ·  By

Linus Torvalds has released a new Release Candidate for the Linux kernel 3.17 branch, bring the development schedule back on track.

The Linux kernel releases are made on a somewhat fixed schedule, which is only perturbed by important events like LinuxCon, holidays, and a few others. This means that users have a new RC every Sunday, leaving them a whole week to test the new kernel. Things got a little bit off track last week when Linus Torvalds and everyone else celebrated 23 years of the Linux kernel, but now things are back on track.

"I'm back to the usual Sunday release schedule, and -rc3 is out there now. As expected, it is larger than rc2, since people are clearly getting back from their Kernel Summit travels etc. But happily, it's not 'much' larger than rc2 was, and there's nothing particularly odd going on, so I'm going to just ignore the whole 'it's summer' argument, and hope that things are just going that well. Please don't prove me wrong," said Linus Torvalds in his regular release announcement.

It's difficult to anticipate when the final version of the new kernel will be released. If everything stays on track, the development schedule should be around 8 to 10 weeks, but very few kernels went that smoothly. Nothing terribly goes on, but some problems are found from time to time or the kernel devs send way too many patches and commits towards the end of the cycle, pushing back the release.

The Linux developers are working towards a new major release in the series, which might be called Linux kernel 4.0. This is supposed to be an ultra-stable version of the kernel that focuses more on bug fixing than anything else. It might arrive once the devs go through the kernel versions up to 3.20, but nothing is set in stone.

Until then, if you find yourself with a clean system and you want to do something fun, you can always install the latest kernel and give it spin. Some of the new features added might prove to be rather interesting, if nothing else. It can also mess up your system, so make sure you know what you are doing.

A complete list of changes, improvements, and fixes can be found in the official changelog. You can download Linux kernel 3.17 RC3 right now from Softpedia.

Remember that this is a development version and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only. Do not install it unless you really know what you are doing.