14 DAY TRIAL // The latest version of the stable Linux kernel 3.13.9 has been announced by Greg Kroah-Hartman, featuring a small number of driver and file system updates.
The latest build of this kernel is not a major update, but the 3.13.x branch is still one of the most advanced versions available for users and Linux distributions. It's already being used in a large number of operating systems and, if the updates keep coming, many others will adopt it.
It's very important to have a new Linux kernel because it usually comes with modern features that are not available in older versions. It's true that some support can be backported to older versions of the kernel, but the main features are usually locked in place. For example, if you have a new hardware setup, you might want to go with an operating system that has a fresh Linux kernel.
One of the biggest distributions that have adopted this branch of the Linux kernel, 3.13.x, is Ubuntu 14.04. This means that, if the Linux maintainers decide not to make this version an LTS one (long term support), it's likely that Canonical will pick up the slack and continue to support the 3.13 kernel, at least until the first point release for Ubuntu 14.04.
“I'm announcing the release of the 3.13.8 kernel. All users of the 3.13 kernel series must upgrade.”
“The updated 3.13.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-3.13.y and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git;a=summary,” Greg Kroah-Hartman said in the email announcement.
This is not a particularly large Linux kernel update and it only packs some changes and improvements for drivers, Arch, and other various fixes.
If you are using any of the versions released until now in the Linux kernel 3.13.x branch, you should consider an update to this build, or you can even update to the latest one, 3.14, which is quite an interesting release.
Linux kernel 3.14 comes with a ton of new features and better hardware support, so if you get the chance to upgrade to 3.14, do it. You might have to wait a while until the appropriate packages become available for your distro, but it's definitely worth the update.
A complete list of commits in this branch of the kernel can be found in the official announcement. Download Linux kernel 3.13.9 right now from Softpedia.