14 DAY TRIAL // Linux kernel developer and maintainer of the long-term supported Linux 3.12 kernel series Jiri Slaby announced the release and immediate availability of the seventy-second maintenance update to the branch.
Linux kernel 3.12.72 LTS is here only two weeks after the previous point release, and it's a small patch that changes a total of 54 files, with 536 insertions and 301 deletions. The improvements included in this version vary from updated drivers to architecture and file system fixes. It's important to note here that the Linux 3.12 LTS kernel series was supposed to reach end of life in January 2017, but will be maintained a little longer because some enterprise OSes still use it.
"I'm announcing the release of the 3.12.72 kernel. All users of the 3.12 kernel series must upgrade. 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," said Jiri Slaby in the mailing list announcement.
The Linux 3.12.72 LTS kernel has a little bit of everything
Looking at the appended shortlog, we can notice that the Linux 3.12.72 LTS kernel has a little bit of everything, starting with improvements for the MIPS, PowerPC (PPC), s390, Xtensa, and x86 hardware architectures, and various bug fixes to the EXT4, FAT, JBD2, NFS, and FUSE filesystems. Additionally, the networking and sound stacks received various small changes to things like mac80211, Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), ALSA, and others.
If you're using a GNU/Linux distribution powered by a kernel from the long-term supported Linux 3.12 series, you need to update your systems to the Linux kernel 3.12.72 LTS patch as soon as it lands in the stable software repositories. OS vendors are urged to download the Linux 3.12.72 LTS kernel source tarball right now from kernel.org or via our website, compile and tweak it for their supported architectures, and then push it to the repos for users to be able to update their machines.