A mistake on the kernel.org website has been fixed

Sep 24, 2015 07:14 GMT  ·  By

Linux kernel developer and maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman felt the need to underline once more something that has been announced a while back, but still hasn't registered with the community. Linux kernel 4.1 is an LTS version.

The Linux kernel is the core component of Linux distributions and many developers usually choose a long-term kernel for their operating systems. These are announced ahead of time and it's usually a big deal. Right now there are eight different branches that are still being supported, with 2.6.32.68 being the oldest.

For some weird reason, not a lot of people got that information right from the start and they are still asking around forums and mailing lists if Linux kernel 4.1 is LTS. This is likely due to an oversight of the kernel.org maintainers who didn't list that branch of the kernel as a long-term release on the website for quite a while.

The Linux kernel will be supported for two more years

We usually don't get such precise dates for Linux kernel support, but Greg made an exception for this one, probably prompted by the fact that he's still asked about it.

"I announced this a few months ago at LinuxCon Japan, but lots of people seem to not have believed me. Here, have a patch, do you believe me now? I'll be maintaining 4.1 for the next two years, proving that after a decade of doing stable kernels, I still do not know any better," wrote Greg Kroah-Hartman on Google+.

The patch he's talking about is for the website, to correct the information posted there. You can download the Linux kernel 4.1.8 right now from Softpedia, but unless you really know what you are doing, you should wait until it reaches your repositories. As it stands right now, 4.1.8 is the most advanced LTS version of the kernel, so it's quite likely that your distribution will have it (with some exceptions).