All users of the Linux 3.12 LTS branch must update

Apr 27, 2016 23:51 GMT  ·  By

Linux kernel developer Jiri Slaby today announced the availability of the fifty-ninth maintenance release of the long-term supported Linux 3.12 kernel series, urging all users to update as soon as possible.

Looking at the appended shortlog, we can notice that Linux kernel 3.12.59 LTS is here to patch various security issues that have been discovered since the previous point release, version 3.12.58, which has been announced two weeks ago by Mr. Jiri Slaby, along with an important piece of information, that the Linux 3.12 series will be supported until 2017 because it is used in SUSE Linux Enterprise 12.

"I'm announcing the release of the 3.12.59 kernel. All users of the 3.12 kernel series must upgrade," said Jiri Slaby. "The updated 3.12.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-3.12.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."

Here's what's new in Linux kernel 3.12.59 LTS

According to the diff from the previous maintenance build, Linux kernel 3.12.59 LTS appears to be a fairly normal release, changing a total of 70 files, with 802 insertions and 266 deletions. And among the changes, we can mention multiple crypto improvements, minor fixes to the support for PA-RISC and x86 hardware architectures, as well as to the EXT4 file system.

There are also multiple networking stack improvements, in particular for the IPv6 and IPv4 protocols, but also for L2TP, mac80211, SunRPC, XFRM, and SCTP. As with any new point release of a Linux kernel branch, there are numerous updated drivers. Therefore, Linux kernel 3.12.59 LTS updates GPU (mostly Radeon), MMC, USB, Xen, and many networking drivers (Ehternet, MLX4, MacVTap, PPP, Wireless, WAN, USB, etc.).

The Linux kernel 3.12.29 LTS sources are now available for download via the kernel.org website or ours, but if you're using a GNU/Linux operating system powered by a kernel from the long-term supported Linux 3.12 series, you need to check for the new version in the main software repositories in the coming days.