Users can now test the third RC build of Linux 4.4

Nov 30, 2015 04:00 GMT  ·  By

Just a few moments ago, Linus Torvalds announced the release and immediate availability for download and testing of the third RC (Release Candidate) build of the upcoming Linux 4.4 kernel.

According to Mr. Torvalds, Linux kernel 4.4 Release Candidate 3 is yet another fairly normal development milestone that fixes many bugs, updates drivers, and other numerous under-the-hood improvements, but nothing out of the ordinary. Everything is normal for now and Linux kernel 4.4 might arrive before the end of 2015.

In numbers, the third Release Candidate build of Linux kernel 4.4 consists of approximately 60% driver updates, especially for Nouveau, about 25% architecture updates (mostly ARM and ARM64, but also for x86, PowerPC (PPC), s390, MIPS, m68k, ARC, and NIOS, roughly 10% filesystem improvements (mostly for Btrfs and NFS), and the rest of 5% miscellaneous stuff.

"I was out most of today, so this is a few hours later than usual, but there it is, the normal weekly rc. 'Steady progress towards 4.4,'" said Linus Torvalds. "The appended shortlog gives some overview of the details. I don't think there's anything particularly exciting, although that obviously depends on whether some particular issue ended up affecting you or not. Most of it is pretty tiny random fixups."

You can test Linux kernel 4.4 RC3 right now

Those of you who are looking into some fun long night testing of the latest Release Candidate version of the upcoming Linux 4.4 kernel, can download the sources right now from the kernel.org website or via Softpedia and start compiling Linux kernel 4.4 Release Candidate 3 by hand on their GNU/Linux operating systems.

However, we feel obliged to inform you that this is a pre-release version of the Linux 4.4 kernel, which means that it contains incomplete features and might not work as expected on your GNU/Linux distribution. Please do not install this version in your stable Linux kernel-based operating system.