Users are urged to upgrade as soon as possible

Feb 1, 2016 22:48 GMT  ·  By

After announcing the release of Linux kernel 4.4.1 LTS, Linux kernel 3.10.96 LTS, and Linux kernel 3.14.60 LTS, renowned kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman has informed users about the seventeenth maintenance build of Linux kernel 4.1 LTS.

Linux kernel 4.1 is a long-term support branch, which means that it will receive security patches, updated drivers, and many other under-the-hood improvements for a couple of years, all in order to keep your GNU/Linux operating systems stable and reliable at all times. And so Linux kernel 4.1.17 LTS is here, and it looks like it's a major update, changing a total of 136 files, with 1,199 insertions and 632 deletions.

"I'm announcing the release of the 4.1.17 kernel. All users of the 4.1 kernel series must upgrade," says Greg Kroah-Hartman in the announcement. "The updated 4.1.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.1.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."

What's new in Linux kernel 4.1.17 LTS

Looking at the appended shortlog, we can notice that Linux kernel 4.1.17 LTS contains many improvements to the ARM64 (AArch64), PowerPC (PPC) and x86 hardware architectures, but also a few fixes for the MIPS and MN10300 ones. Also worth mentioning are many updated drivers, especially for things like USB, networking, HID, IOMMU, PA-RISC, ISDN, and Xen, as well as numerous sound enhancements.

Also, the networking stack has gotten a lot of attention in this release, improving things like B.A.T.M.A.N. Advanced, IPv6, IPv4, Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP), Open vSwitch, Phonet, SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol), and XFRM. All users of GNU/Linux distributions powered by kernel packages from the Linux 4.1 LTS series are urged to upgrade as soon as possible. Download Linux kernel 4.1.17 LTS.